Australian Magpie

[Colin Driscoll]

This is an Australian Magpie, another of my yard birds. This one is a female as shown by the off-white patches; the male is very contrasting black and white. They are feeding a couple of young just out of the nest. These birds can get extremely territorial during the nesting season and dive-bomb anyone who walks through their home area. They are known to draw blood on people's heads and it can be comical to see people walking around with protective stuff on. The ones in my yard are quite tolerant.

This bird is keeping a lookout skyward for predators.

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh296/MyPikkies/My%20Yard%20Birds/AustralianMagpie240909.jpg

50D, 100-400 @ 400, 1/500, f6.3, 0ev, iso 125, 430EXII -1.33

[David Fletcher]

Excellent low angle of view. Details in blacks and whites look good Colin. Lovely bg too. Well done. Dinner a bonus.

[Simon Bennett]

Good job with the exposure, you've got detail in the blacks (and sheen too) and whites, also like the low perspective and background.

[Tony Whitehead]

Lovely low angle, alert pose and superb eye detail. Prey items are great. Seem to be some quite broad halos giving the impression of quite aggressive use of Clarity in ACR (or equivalent). Limiting vertical height of images to 800px as per posting guideline (1024 horiz, 800 vert) makes it easier to assess image as a whole without scrolling on smaller screens. Good light angle and exposure to show detail in the blacks while retaining the whites.

[Colin Driscoll]

Thanks everyone. Tony, I use DPP but only pp'd in CS3 and have to look hard to see what you might be seeing- maybe down the breast of the bird? I did use a mask and smoothed the bg a little. As for posting size, I just link from Photobucket so will need to upload a smaller image there. I take your point about screen size.

[Tony Whitehead]

Hi Colin. The impression of a broad halo is most prominent down the breast and around the legs. It gives the impression similar to what appears when processing in Adobe Camera Raw (in either Lightroom or Photoshop) and pushing the "Clarity" slider to the right. Can't remember if this was in ACR in PS3 or only came in PS4 and LR2. It is a similar effect to creating a local contrast adjustment using USM with high radius and low amount.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Pose is perfect as is exposure. :)

It looks just a little flat on my monitor, perhaps a few contrast tweaks will enhance this. :)