stared at me

[Edy Subiyanto]

Canon 7d
Canon 100-400 lens
F-stop f/8
exposure time 1/400
iso 800
focal length 400

What do you name for this bird? in Indonesian its name is blekok sawah

please give me your critic or opinion about my pic

[Katie Rupp]

Hi Edy, sorry, I haven't seen this bird before so maybe someone else will be able to identify a counterpart name; it has beautiful colors and I like the pose and the very direct look.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Eddy - cant help with the ID- SORRY :)

Bird looks a little smooth - lacking in fine detail - did you use any noise reduction on trhe image??
The stick protruding from thre birds body in the BG is unfortunate - a easy fix in photoshop if you are so inclined. I would have prefered to see a little more head turn - but like this as well.
TFS

[Edy Subiyanto]

Lance, Yes I did reduce the noise using photoshop.

Here is the another pose of this bird and I just increase the saturation, set the level, and removing the stick in bg, and I did not reduce the noise...

[Roy Priest]

Indian Pond Heron Ardeola grayii ?

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Edy,
I like the capture, the bird's feathers look a tad soft, blended by noise reduction. I do like the head angle. Agree with Mr. Peters on eliminating the branch coming out of the head...looking forward to your next one...:cool:

[David Stephens]

That a beautiful bird Edy. I like both poses. The lighting was very tough here, particularly the first version, with the light on the head. I prefer the second image, largly due to the lighting of the head and slightly better head position.

It does look a little oversharpened to me, or there was too much NR, reducing the feather detail.

Since you started cleaning up the background, I'd go the rest of the way and get the rest of the junk/trash out of the background.

A Canon 7D shouldn't need much sharpening and NR at ISO 800. How does this look with only minimal NR and sharpening. Given the excellent sharpness of the eye, I'm thinking that we'll see much more feather detail with only default sharpening and NR.

Great effort. I'm looking forward to more.

Dave

[Edy Subiyanto]

Guys do you mean like this pic?

I didn't do sharpening nor nr...

I just increase the saturation and removing something in the bg..

more critiques or advise are welcome

Edy

[Lance Peters]

Guys do you mean like this pic?

I didn't do sharpening nor nr...

I just increase the saturation and removing something in the bg..

more critiques or advise are welcome

Edy

Hi - if you have a look now in this post the feathers that were white in the original post now appear to have a blueish tinge - this is not good - you want your whites to be white.

Maybe post the jpg with nothing done to it - straight out of the camera and converted so you can link it here - that way we can try and give you some help.:)

[Edy Subiyanto]

ok, I will try to post the original image

here is the original image. Maybe the blueish tinge on the feather because i increase the saturation..

Edy

[David Stephens]

Edy, your cloning on your last attempt is very crude.

You need to use a softer brush and take more samples and overlap them. Do it at 100% or greater and keep working until you don't see the Clone Brush lines. Then when you Convert and Reduce the marks will not be visible. You've got the idea, but it takes a little more work to get it smooth.

I see that you're going to get some great help here with the original. This is a great forum.

[Lance Peters]

ok, I will try to post the original image

here is the original image. Maybe the blueish tinge on the feather because i increase the saturation..

Edy

Hi Eddy - :) Your original is a about 1 stop or so under exposed - Do you have your over exposure blinkies turned on in camera?? Also do you know how to use the histogram feature??? You want to push the histogram as far to the right as possible without overexposing anything (Unless you are doing a High key image)
Under exposing whilst it can be adjusted in PP - Introduces noise.

I set a black and white point - via a levels layer in photoshop - holding down the ALT key as I dragged the sliders so that I can see the thresholds.
next I cleaned up the Bg - Cloning what I did not want included.

Next I selectively sharpened the bird only - then inverted my selection and applied noise reduction on the BG only.
Then selected the light bottom area and adjusted the levels to make it a little darker.

All done on layers so non destructive.

Look any better?? You can do MUCH better with the original resolution file.

[Edy Subiyanto]

Lance, it's better than mine... you did it very well...
I don't have pic with over exposure...
Did you use lasso tool or magic wand to select the bird? it's really hard to select the bird using lasso tool.

Is it better to shot a bird in over exposure rather than under exposure?
I don't know how to use the histogram feature. Is it in camera setting or in photoshop ?

Edy

[Lance Peters]

Lance, it's better than mine... you did it very well...
I don't have pic with over exposure...
Did you use lasso tool or magic wand to select the bird? it's really hard to select the bird using lasso tool.

Is it better to shot a bird in over exposure rather than under exposure?
I don't know how to use the histogram feature. Is it in camera setting or in photoshop ?

Edy

Hi Eddy - the histogram is how you judge your exposure - Its best not over exposed (It it is you will have whites that have no detail and the detail may not be recoverable) and not under by too much either - you can lighten it when converting but if its too much under you will introduce noise.

Have a look at this link it will help explain --- http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=8022

Worth Getting Arties books from -- https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=19
The Bible really!

[Edy Subiyanto]

David Stephen, Lance - thanks for the tips and the links.. really helpful. Lance, I'm planning to buy that book. Do you think that it's better to buy the book or the cd? is there any differences between them?

David Stephen, I like this forum, great support. I just upload a new image on landscape forum, waiting your advise..

Edy

[David Stephens]

Lance, great job of make great corrections and explaining it for Edy.

Edy, make sure you read that thead and get the book. Most "good" exposures "exposed to the right" (of the histogram) will look overexposed in the jpeg. That's ok, so long as you didn't blow out the light highlights. You can easily pull the brightness down in PP.

Edy, you're making great strides.

Dave

[Lance Peters]

David Stephen, Lance - thanks for the tips and the links.. really helpful. Lance, I'm planning to buy that book. Do you think that it's better to buy the book or the cd? is there any differences between them?

David Stephen, I like this forum, great support. I just upload a new image on landscape forum, waiting your advise..

Edy

Hi Eddy - the book originates from the film days -but still has a lot of useful info on exposure composition and the likes. The CD is crammed full of useful info and stunning shots.