Of course I'll be gentle

[Christopher C.M. Cooke]

This is the male Banded Stilt about to mount the female during one of the most beautiful and gentle mating rituals of any birds I have witnessed.

When mating is over the Male covers the female with his wing for a while then they walk away together with their bills touching, I captured the entire sequence and I will post some further captures of this ritual soon.

Captured at the Edithvale Wetlands (not wet anymore sadly) Melbourne Australia on a Canon EOS 1 D MKIII, 300mm F/4 L IS , 1/2000 sec., ISO-200, Pattern metering, f/5, Aperture Priority, 0 step.





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[Lance Peters]

Hi Chris - touching moment - when was this taken?? Like the tender pose.
Seeing some really funky stuff going on in the background (the large round circles)???

Cloning attempt maybe - if your are relatively new to PS - grab your self a copy of Robert O'Tooles APTATS CD - it will help you immensely with quick masks and the likes.

[Christopher C.M. Cooke]

Cloning attempt maybe - if your are relatively new to PS - grab your self a copy of Robert O'Tooles APTATS CD - it will help you immensely with quick masks and the likes. <!-- / message -->
Hi Chris, there are basically 3 clone methods. The first obvious one is the clone stamp tool. Usually you need to make sure to set the hardness of the stamp is set to 0, so that edges are not visible: that is what went wrong here. The second one is the patch tool: select the area you want to fix and drag it what you want it to look: very useful for small corrections. The third one is the quickmask method (APTATS, Robert O'Tool): select Quick Mask mode, select the brush, set opacity to 75-100% and mark the area you wish to copy. Ctrl-C and V and use the move tool (V) to move the selection to the area to be corrected.

Thank you thank you, I knew folks would pick me up on that.

I spent an hour trying to get it right and as I assumed, failed but I knew I would get some help here.

Tomorrow is Monday here and I will pick up that ASAP.

Cloning appears so simple until you try it and Artie introduced me to cloning before my accident and I now need to do a lot of work on PP which I will with your help.

Again thanks.

Lance the sequence (which is the best one I have ever seen) was taken on the 30/11/08 at Edithvale Wetlands and I would love to post the abridged sequence as it is poetry in motion but I don't believe we have that facility on this forum.

The EXIF data should be intact on the photos I post here feel free to use it.

[Christopher C.M. Cooke]

Thanks Peter I will try to do that.

How do I order the CD any idea?

Original file below

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[Christopher C.M. Cooke]

You folk amaze me!

I will email Artie tomorrow and get the entire box and dice set and retire to my shed for a while.

Thank you again mate.

[Christopher C.M. Cooke]

Thanks Peter I am on to it now.

Cheers
Chris

[Christopher C.M. Cooke]

Order sent!

Thanks again

[Stu Bowie]

A special moment well captured Chris.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Good capture of this moment. The light looks a bit harsh and the birds need more sharpening. What sharpening settings do you usually use?

[Fabs Forns]

Very nice moment, shame the light was less than ideal. Will be looking forward to the rest of the series.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Chris, you'll have oodles of fun with the APTATS stuff.

I do need to tell you and am very surprised no one else picked up that this is a Black-winged Stilt (aka Pied Stilt) not a Banded Stilt, which is a different species altogether. See here. (http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/finder/display.cfm?id=241)

[Christopher C.M. Cooke]

Quite right Akos, my error and unforgivable as I have just finished an count of them for the association and we are many pairs down on last year.

I hope that I did not misname them in my report.

Don't worry if I have the "Ladies" who run our group will have me burnt at the stake if I have.

If so it has been nice knowing all of you:)

[Christopher C.M. Cooke]

Very nice moment, shame the light was less than ideal. Will be looking forward to the rest of the series. Yes Fabs I could have had better light but our breeding pairs (only photographed mating in the wetlands twice this year) are quite shy and I watched them chase off about eighty Sharp Tailed Sandpipers before they mated in the shade of the bird hide.

We also found a nest with the remains of 3 eggs which unfortunately had been raided by snakes.

The drought has rearly ravaged our wetlands.

[Christopher C.M. Cooke]

Good capture of this moment. The light looks a bit harsh and the birds need more sharpening. What sharpening settings do you usually use?
<!-- / message -->

Axel as the CS3 Luddite of the year award winner I sharpen in ACR by sight at 200% crop (I know that I should probably be shot at dawn for this) but I have take an oath of honour to massively improve my PP skills this year and am ordering every publication on the subject and intend to spend winter concentrating on learning PP.

As is typical of me I simply love going out and photographing things and avoid the PP but there comes a time and mine has arrived.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Don't worry Chris. You are spared. For now. :D

What I do find a bit strange is that not everyone mentions their subjects' names and I am not familiar with many of them that get posted here. A bit annoying for me at least. But I'll get over it. :)