Black Grouse

[Magnus Thornberg]

https://0dr6la.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pNko3qtlzNLnQbQqHSdukOBGT4HayJOnkzNcU4WTFfWmgukF JJtyJK56ksmTa3S3dDvimH-Hy_lGhQwxNHrqAjA/_MG_4065-Edit_1024_orre.jpg

I woke up early in the morning before sunrise! I heard the Black Grouses playing outside my tent! It was my first attempt to photograph them. The fog and hoarfrost was amazing, just as the sun breached i got this shot! Maybe the image lack of contrast, but this was as the eye saw it!
The location is northeast of the town Falun in the middle of Sweden.

Canon 40D, Canon Ef 300/2.8L IS USM, Canon EF 2x extender, 600mm, f6.3, 1/250s, iso 800

[Fabs Forns]

Very moody image. I may lighten the top of the head and eye as if the sun were coming up and hitting there first.
I'd also crop some off the bottom, I don't think it adds anything to the image. Very inetersting presentation, thanks for sharing it.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the angle, mood and low light and might crop it a bit tighter to remove the OOF area in the foreground. I adjusted the highlights in levels.

[Magnus Thornberg]

Thanks for the good suggestions! I like Axel´s version!

/M
http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABYAAAAUCAYAAAC JfM0wAAAABHNCSVQICAgIfAhkiAAAAAlwSFlzAAAK8AAACvABQ qw0mAAAAB90RVh0U29mdHdhcmUATWFjcm9tZWRpYSBGaXJld29 ya3MgOLVo0ngAAAAWdEVYdENyZWF0aW9uIFRpbWUAMDQvMDQvM DhrK9wWAAACMElEQVQ4ja3SP2gTcRQH8O8vvUtIGmkqTY3SaMV Fz6KDW2ywg4s4dGgXp3SyVLIIthCKQxCCuoZaXaSO/ilKd4sSdXRL0EWtIRYaSkXsJTH33utwSZM01xo0D353v+N+97l 33/upQCAwFgwGfehiFYtFUxsYGPCmUqmv3YQTicSwBgCapnXTBQBo Sinout5VVCnVDr/44B/OZH0xs6KMThCfR3LRs+aTycjvbwfCmawvduZkn7EwN4TBfheY9 0fXN6uYuffdyGQRu3apkmyDmzM2K8pYmBvC6kcLK+/KMEsWLCIQMSyLULUIFhH0HsGNycNYnDuO6PRno9lQSsFVh+tDQ SEY6MHymzJKFQILgxkgYhALmBnMDLNsIf1sA8cG3VDYYzhFAWW fRBjCAiIbIxYQE1ga17+2GSICKLQYznCtiATEDK6BIrU5MUhgd 0+NH+AIt+5jshdqgkpVwEwNkBgs9lyE4XY3nnLMWNf13QEAG1u E2JVe9PUC5JCvCMPrVpifOor1YnW34/pw7NjvVbmZ+3ljcTaMq5EjbRFJ07Gw8QfTd9fg96rc3o7bMh4f 9SytvDenLl7/ZADAl5cjWF7dwmy60PaSeiPjo56lv2Ycnzi0Fp9AEgAu39x8+u rtT9x5/GP74a2++LlTuumo76kDd4W9ALj9qIDIiOfBhdO+jtB9O279TFc uet77fD7Wn+sU7ajj1+kTSccb/wv/aymloEKh0Fg4HPZ2E87n86Udvs4FoWqwSHUAAAAASUVORK5CYI I=

[Tony Whitehead]

Lovely mood and colours. BG is very nice. Axel's version has covered my suggestions.

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

beautiful light and fantastic warm colors,axel`s repost looks better!

[Ramon M. Casares]

I think I would go for a little more contrast here, but iother than that I like the Low Angle, BG and species. Congratulations!

[Lana Hays]

Magnus
Well this one certainly is all about the mood. I like it.....especially Axel's crop. A beautiful image that is pleasantly different.

[Stu Bowie]

Lovely moody image, and like the pose.

[Juan Aragonés]

Magnus I love this image, it is simply excellent. The mood is fantastic and the very first light of the day touching the reds and the eye is superb. I also love the golden grass illuminated by the same light and the fantastic, dark BG. I like the composition with lots of room around the bird would would crop just a litle bit and I think that some boosting of the contrast and selective adjustment of levels and saturation in the eye, red (knobbes?) and in the grass would improve the result. Very nice eye contact and shooting angle. KILLER image, very well done

[Magnus Thornberg]

JUAN, you did i great job with the image! i LOVE the adjustments you have done! You made the image much, much better thanks!
But that's not what i saw through the the camera! Sometimes you have to ignore that:)
Thanks again! i will try to adjust the original and repost it in the Swedish forum!

/M

[Juan Aragonés]

Magnus, glad to hear that you liked the repost, of course you can use it for whatever you want but if you need some additional information about the processing job that I did just let me know :-)
I always have on mind that reality is one thing and what you see through the camera (or perhaps is better to say, what you see when the RAW file is opened in the computer) is a different thing. I think that the best we can do is to retain in our barin as much details as possible from the scene we saw and to try to process the image with that information. Obviously, I didn´t see the original image because (unfortunately, I was not there) but I have seen a lot of times the kind of light and I used that information to process it trying to avoid, an unnatural result. (nothing was added to the image, just a litle bit of levels adjustment and saturation). I am sure that you can get a more acurate result. Once again, a superb image

BTW, I have been watching that swedish forum at I enjoyed a lot the excelent images.

[christopher galeski]

nice shot Magnus,but what Juan as done with it,as made it magic.thanks.