PDA

View Full Version : Blue On Blue... Florida Scrub Jay


Joseph Przybyla
12-01-2017, 06:07 PM
One of the most endangered birds in Florida and USA because of habitat destruction. I captured this image this morning. After five years of searching I have found a place where I feel I can reliably find and photograph Florida Scrub Jays. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Nikon D500
Nikon 80-400mm F/4.5-5.6 VRII AF-S ED image captured at 220mm
1/2500 F/8 Matrix Metering EV +1 ISO 900 AWB, camera supported by a monopod
Post processed in Lightroom Classic CC and Photoshop CC 201
Cropped for composition and presentation
Glenn Pure
12-02-2017, 12:45 AM
Sounds like you have lucked out Joe: but I'm sure a lot of work was involved to find this location. The bird looks great with those subtle blues and greys against a complementary blue sky background. Without know the bird though, the frame looks a bit light in tone to me. Also I'd clone out that dark blob upper right. I'll look forward to seeing more of this species so thanks for sharing this one.
Joseph Przybyla
12-02-2017, 06:01 AM
Sounds like you have lucked out Joe: but I'm sure a lot of work was involved to find this location. The bird looks great with those subtle blues and greys against a complementary blue sky background. Without know the bird though, the frame looks a bit light in tone to me. Also I'd clone out that dark blob upper right. I'll look forward to seeing more of this species so thanks for sharing this one.

Hi Glenn, thank you for viewing, commenting, and providing another set of eyes. As many times as I looked at that image in post I missed the smudge in the upper right hand corner. I corrected that and worked on the tones in the image.
Glenn Pure
12-02-2017, 06:08 AM
This looks considerably better to me Joe in terms of tones although I can't be definitive since I don't know the species. Nice to see that blob gone - I miss things like this all the time when I'm processing.
Bill Dix
12-02-2017, 09:31 AM
Congratulations on getting such a nice sharp - very sharp - image of this endangered Florida specialty. I like what the repost did for the bird. I might be tempted to desaturate the sky a tad in the repost. The Florida sky can certainly look like this, but it seems to take away a bit from the bird. We found one after a long slog down a little-used path in Merritt in February, but couldn't get a good angle on him.