Crested Caracara [Archive] - BirdPhotographers.net

gail bisson

06-19-2018, 06:00 AM

Canon 1 DX 600mm
ISO 1000 SS 1/2500 F 8.0
Taken in Texas last month.
Cropped from landscape orientation to portrait orientation. 90%FF on the vertical. Nothing added or cloned. Usual LR6 sliders and in CS5 -levels and DE/TC at 9%. No sharpening to JPEG.(the DE?TC seem to do enough sharpening to my eye)
Comments and critiques always learned from and appreciated with thanks,
Gail

Alex Becker

06-19-2018, 09:37 AM

Pretty cool pose and I love the fanned tail. Exposure looks great. I've never seen one of these birds but color looks good. I like the bit of head turn with the catch light in the eye. Details look good to me too. TFS

annmpacheco

06-19-2018, 09:57 AM

perfecto! i like the curl of the bottom wing, great HA as well.

Bill Dix

06-19-2018, 12:51 PM

Wonderful full wing spread, fanned tail, head turn with open bill. Lots to like. If it had been mine I probably would have sharpened just a bit, especially the coverts, but I've often over-sharpened.

William Dickson

06-19-2018, 02:33 PM

Love the flight pose. Looking real good here Gail. HA, fanned tail, feather detail, it has the lot.

Well done

Will

John Mack

06-19-2018, 04:40 PM

Neat looking tail on these birds. The catchlight in the eye is nice. Nice flight pose as well.

Glenn Pure

06-19-2018, 08:10 PM

Perfect pose and great dorsal view, Gail, with open bill and fanned tail. Hard to get any better than this. I see you've cropped vertical from a horizontal: I think it could work either way but this one is fine to my eye. I do think some very mild output sharpening would help this. Try the 'Sharpness' function rather than usm and try 0.3 to 0.4 pixels radius. Assume this is available somewhere in PS/LR (not sure which you use). This tool is much more subtle and less likely to introduce halos and other artifacts that usm.

Steve Kaluski

06-20-2018, 05:07 AM

Hi Gail, I like the banking pose and the fanned out tail feathers. Nice clean backdrop and ideal for the camera to lock onto the subject. From the distance I think you could have gone f/6.3 to gain more DoF, but I'm guessing on distance using the 600mm lens.

I also agree that you need to apply some sharpening, all digital files require degrees of sharpening and DC will not give you the High/Low frequency sharpening required. In addition I would seriously look at upgrading your LR to the current 7.4 and CS5 to PSCC2018 as the refinements and options are far greater and will aid & maximise your 1DX files, to the point where you will find you can extra more depth & detail from the raws.

TFS
Steve

gail bisson

06-20-2018, 06:41 AM

Hi Gail, I like the banking pose and the fanned out tail feathers. Nice clean backdrop and ideal for the camera to lock onto the subject. From the distance I think you could have gone f/6.3 to gain more DoF, but I'm guessing on distance using the 600mm lens.

I also agree that you need to apply some sharpening, all digital files require degrees of sharpening and DC will not give you the High/Low frequency sharpening required. In addition I would seriously look at upgrading your LR to the current 7.4 and CS5 to PSCC2018 as the refinements and options are far greater and will aid & maximise your 1DX files, to the point where you will find you can extra more depth & detail from the raws.

TFS
Steve

Yup, I agree. Just waiting till November Black Friday sale that Adobe has on CC (good deal) as well as buying a new monitor!

Steve Kaluski

06-20-2018, 07:46 AM

Yup, I agree. Just waiting till November Black Friday sale that Adobe has on CC (good deal) as well as buying a new monitor!

Good for you Gail, occasionally it's nice to treat ourselves.

Never seen a 'Black Friday' sale with Adobe, as the it a monthly payment, be interested to hear what happens. Just remember to check that your computer's 'architecture' can handle the upgrade. Also if you use Third party software you may find you have to install manually some of the 'plug-ins' but I'm sure that they have Customer Services that can help. LR & PSCC2018 has some nice refined features and you may find that you only need to move some sliders or less aggressively. The new LR 'filter' additions I think is 'pants' as it is more geared I think to folk who don't really want or understand how to process, but always worth a play, just depends on how far you emerge yourself in either, but rarely do folk go beyond 10-15% of it actually capabilities.

Again with a monitor, check you computer can handle it along with cables and the various ports, graphic card etc. Also, and I think Will experienced this too, it's all very nice having a super dooper monitor with gorgeous saturation, rich dark tones and almost 3D quality, but if you also want to print, what you may see on screen and what you can achieve at print stage could be 'interesting' :S3:. Personally I would also look at a screen that can be calibrated via say Spyder or ColorMunki etc... (actually most of these are produced by the same company X-rite I think) and watch for ambient light, widows facing monitors and lamps, they all contribute

Isaac Grant

06-20-2018, 10:14 AM

Hey Gail I have come back to this one a few times before commenting. I love the fully spread wings and flared tail. The light is great as well. I'd prefer a slightly better head angle. As for the sharpness I think it depends on what monitor you are viewing it on. On my iphone the image looks great. On the 5k imac it looks like it could use a bit more sharpening. But I also think that the Texas sun and heat have beat up the birds feathers a bit and they look a little worn which could be contributing to the feeling of not being super sharp. As for CC and a monitor, they do run sales often even during the year. I just paid $120 to B&H and then got a $30 B&H gift card that I used right away on some accessories for the 600. Just extended the end date of my subscription another year. If I was to choose between waiting and paying full price I would pay full price in a second. Same goes for a high quality monitor like the NEC 4k or even an imac 5k.

arash_hazeghi

06-21-2018, 01:56 AM

nice banking pose but the image looks a bit soft on my screen and needs some sharpening

TFS

gail bisson

06-21-2018, 01:09 PM

Here is a redo with USM to JPEG.
Thanks for all your comments. Much appreciated!

Frank Schauf

06-25-2018, 01:44 AM

Fantastic. Wonderful pose.

David Salem

06-25-2018, 04:41 PM

I thought I already commented on this image but I think somehow it didn't go through:e3.
You know this is my kind of image Gail and you did great catching this guy.
Perfect exposure control and colors too.
Yes a little teeny look over our way would have been better but pretty **** good!!