Coming or Going

[wendell westfall]

NikonD70s 70-200VR @70mm 1/1250 f2.8 ISO250 shutter priority

Not sure if it is a takeoff or a landing (I think he's taking off). This morning the brown pelicans were putting on quite a show! I cropped out about a 1/4th of the image and made other minor adjustments in Lightroom. Is the water too green (small tint adjustment)? Is the image sharp enough? Etc.? C&C, please . . .

Thanks,
Wendell

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Wendell,
Very nice capture of the take off...:D I like the splash of water in the back, and the raised wing position. The colors on the bird are good and so are the details. You were shooting in harsh sun light. Your whites on the pelican's head are at 255, tried to recover, but to no avail; they are gone...:( You might want to clone in some texture, or burn it in about 12 percent..other that this, you did real good on the capture...:cool:proud of you...now show me some more Pelican compositions, this is my favorite goofy bird...:D:cool:

[wendell westfall]

Hi Gus . . .
Thanks for those kind words. Please tell me how you discovered the whites are at 255. I don't know how to do/see that.

[Harold Davis]

wendell, look at the histogram. all the way to the left is 0, also true black. all the way to the right is 255, also true white, in some pp programs there are sliders under the histogram you can move left and right. you can find your hottest whites by moving the slider.

nice capture. actually the light doesnt look hot, i think it's just overexposed or something done in PP.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Wendell - to see where your whites are at, open your image in P.S. and have a look at the Histogram (Toolbar-Window-Histogram - will get the histogram window to display) when you position the mouse over the histogram display it will give you the value of the position that you hold the mouse over.

If you turn your over exposure highlights on - you will get to see any blown highlights after you take the shot, you can also view your histogram on the back of the Camera.

Hope that helps.

:)

[wendell westfall]

Thanks, guys. I have done some reading about histograms since this post started and think I understand them better. I believe generally that I should push the whites over to the right as far as I can without touching the end . . . and in this case i crowded the end too much.

[Gus Hallgren]

Hi Wendell:

Great capture, I love it. I think some minus EV would have probably improved the whites. I didn't think they looked bad (Marginal). Don't know about your camera, but in mine I set the Highlight/Shadow window on, and if my highlights are high it flashes red where the highlights are & flashes blue for shadows. When I see red highlights flashing I lower my EV in increments -0.30, -0.70, -0.10 etc until red flashing disappears on my camera LCD.

FWIW

Uncle Gus :D:D

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Hi Wendell,
I think this is a great capture. You look like you have burned the splash behind the bird. I would try linear burn maybe. I thought there was a colour cast so I changed it to what I thought it might be. Some vignetting around the edges may put more focus on the bird. Just some ideas for you.

[wendell westfall]

Uncle Gus and Jackie:
I know about the "blinkies" in my camera; now I must remember it more frequently. And, Jackie, I like your blue color better than my green . . . the vignetting I'll give a try for the first time.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Wendell Take the eye dropper tool and place it over the area you want to check Will give a reading !!!

For this running take off you want lots more room in front for the bird to fly into and behind to see the elegant wake !!! Image is sharp and well exposed. I like the re post, original had a funky looking color !!!