Anteating Chat

[Chris Kotze]

Anteating Chat
Canon 40D 100-400
SS1/400 Sec F9.0
ISO 400 Time 7h15

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the soft light, details and BG and might give it a bit more room at the bottom. A slight head turn towards you would have made it even better.

I fixed the link since the forum software didn't create a thumbnail for some reason.

[Morkel Erasmus]

super light and detail in this Chris! can only be Rietvlei?? teeny bit more space bottom and right for me.

[Dave Leroy]

Lovely light captured nicely Chris. Well done. Dave

[Joe Senzatimore]

Love the light and BG. It is a bit tight.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Love the light in this one. BG is great too. Thanks for sharing this beauty.

[Arthur Morris]

I've seen this bird in life and remember it as pretty black. The image as presented has a huge red cast. I reduced the RED and YELLOW SAT for the re-post. Would like to hear from folks familiar with the species....

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Hi. The one thing I noticed, and it could just be my monitor, but I see results of unsharp mask on an image that was a bit soft. There are a number of feathers that have white edges that are characteristic of this type of sharpening. I could be wrong, believe me it has happened, but play along with me here and imagine I am correct. In the first place I would determine if the image was soft due to technical issues, such as too slow a shutter speed, underexposure lightened up with a corresponding loss of detail, or detail resolution of the lens not being up to par. I know nothing about your lens, and if you are confident in its detail resolution, this can immediately be ruled out.
I would use smart sharpen (in PS) or high pass sharpening, instead of unsharp mask. However, if I must rely on sharpening to get good images, other than convert downsized images to jpegs, I would try to determine what factors led me to needing it in the first place. regards~Bill Oh, I forgot, this is only an opinion~your mileage may vary

[Dave Barnes]

Hi Chris.
Sweet light well captured. I like the detail but think think it may be just a bit over sharpened.
Colour wise there could be a slight yellow cast due to morning light but I think your post is closer to the actual bird colour?

[Stu Bowie]

Chris, stunning light, and like the detail on him. I agree this is ever so slightly oversharpened, but the colours look fine to me.

Artie, These guys have varying degree of colours, from a light brown to a dark brown.

[Chris Kotze]

Thanks for all the comments. Arthur your repost looks great thanks. This is still a young bird and the colours are brown however the morning sunlight gave that sweet light effect. William thanks for your input I normally use the smart sharpening method.
I use the 100-400 L 5.6 lens and had focusing problems this were sorted out but after receiving it back all my images seems to be soft and then I tend overwork them in PP. I'll have to check this out.

[Mark Dumbleton]

I know this species well, and repost looks better. Super light. Needs a bit of room to the left - feels a bit cramped.

[Kobus Tollig]

Ditto ovesharpened. I like what Artie has done to it. But I can agree with Chris that the sweet light sometimes does make it look like he's.....I think its cause of sweet light and the yellow grass at Rietvlei. So I do feel Chris's shot is fine. Arties post does look a bit flat?

[Arthur Morris]

Just for the record, is this Anteating Chat or Anteater Chat?

[Isak Pretorius]

Anteating Chat. Colors looks fine. Great comp with something extra. It's hard to make these ones look good but you've done this well in my opinion. I like the comp as is, but maybe a landscape with this interesting perch might have worked as well... ?

[Paul Kusmin]

beautiful bird and BG, I love the morning light.
It's hard to say if it's over sharpened or not, looks pretty good to me.
Bit more room on bottom and right perhaps.

[Chris Kotze]

Thanks for all the views and comments