Naughty Naughty Bird

[Mike Tracy]

While out fishing yesterday this annoying Egret would fly over head, dive into the water and grab my shiner off the hook. I have had ospreys do this countless times but never this species. After "feeding" him about $10 worth of bait I figured I would just shoot him instead of shooing him away.

Not real sure if I like the stark sky but for 3 in the afternoon the light doesn't appear to be too harsh.

1D3, EF500, 1/2500, F9, ISO 400, HH

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s114/BlueDeuce1/egrettoho-1.jpg

[Doug Brown]

The bird is flying away from you but the look-back pose saves the day. Light is a little harsh; I might try to tone down the whites, which appear bright but not blown.

[Alfred Forns]

I like it Mike Pose its just fine for me, different and works well, elegant pose !! I like the whites as presented and would not tone down, seems to go well with the soft blue bg !! .... you had a good sun angle for covering the bird !!! ... worth the bait !!!

[paul leverington]

Real nice Mike--I like the diagonals. Also I like the going away-lookback posture of the bird. If you could bring down the hot whites that would improve. Overall --a successful shot!

Paul

[Phil Ertel]

Hi Mike, I view of the back of the wings. I agree with the others that the angles work well with he slight head turn. I also agree with Alfred I like the whites as the are.

[Fabs Forns]

Whites are white and if they are not blown, I really do not see the need to make them darker.
Love the diagonal made by the wings.

[Bruce Enns]

Hi Mike, Love the dorsal view and the semi look-back pose, whites look great to me. Seems to be saying "Now that I have your attention, look how beautiful I am!" I'd pay 10 bucks, even 10 bucks US, for a shot like that.

Cheers!
Bruce

PS I'm curious about the white outlines on the legs (more on the near one) and under the neck...they look unusual to me...any idea where they came from?

[Ilija Dukovski]

Great pose, I like the feather details a lot, the HA is good too.
The BG is actually quite good with the white bird.
I think the image is over-sharpened a bit.
Especially the head and bill.
Other than that excellent image.

[Troy Lim]

Mike,
Love the pose, white is not too harsh on my monitor, just right. But sharpening is a bit much, as you can see the black line along the edge of the wings.

[Randy Stout]

Mike:

I like the overall composition very much, despite the non perfect head angle. The eye is right at the intersection of the RU rule of thirds point.

At the risk of raising hackles, there are a lot blown pixels, had to pull the recovery slider to 47 in ACR to eliminate the red markers. I also tried a very slight reverse S curve, and I thought it was very effective in taming the contrast a bit.

Might be worth a look.

Randy

[Mike Tracy]

PS I'm curious about the white outlines on the legs (more on the near one) and under the neck...they look unusual to me...any idea where they came from?

Thanks folks for the comments and insight.

I must admit when I process a image I am sort of lackadaisical when it comes to the image I throw up on BPN. My work flow is geared towards the final tiff and I don't pay enough attention to the fine details I might have lost, the whites shifting or my output sharpening when I save as a jpeg for here.

Bruce, the outlines you noticed and I missed until you pointed them out are probably from right before I posted I masked the bird and changed the hue of the sky ever so slightly and I did a lousy job.

Edit: Was writing this as Randy was also. In the raw file and tiff there is not a blown pixel to be found. I will try to adjust my work flow to take the nuances of jpegs, resizing and web color management for future postings into consideration. In my defense though do you ( not directed at Randy) have any idea how difficult it is to shoot a white bird under the bright Fl. sun and even get it this close especially when holding a beer and fishing rod :) ?

[Randy Stout]

Mike:

I hadn't factored in the beer issue. Esp. if many of this beers family members had already made the ultimate sacrifice that day:D, you did great.

Mike, I try not to be too picky about a few blown pixels (:D) but this was enough to effect the perceived image quality for me.

Hope you caught some fish after this guy flew off.

Randy

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Randy

I have looked at this image in three different monitors, all high end and calibrated... image looks good as presented. The light is harsh but I do not see an area of blown whites, have looked up and down the bird.
You must be seeing something I'm not?

[Randy Stout]

Alfred:

Below is a screen capture from ACR. To my mind, this is enough to warrant using the recovery slider, which as I mentioned needed to go to about 47 to remove the highlight warnings. I don't think that the highlight indicator is monitor dependent, but I could be wrong:)

I certainly will admit that I prefer less bright images than others, but I thought it did look better with the corrections I mentioned.

Randy

Doug and I were working at the same time, sorry for the duplicate ACR post

[Alfred Forns]

Randy If you have to resort to downloading and image and checking there is something that is not right in my opinion !!!!!

The image looks good as presented, period. Even Doug said he did not seem to have blown pixels. Imagine if you have an entire area blown is one thing, some pixels here or there is something else.

[Mike Tracy]

Hey guys, I have found this discussion interesting and enlightening. I haven't opened up a file in ACR in moons as I use DPP. I was curious as to whether there would be a difference between the two at least in this case so I did check what the raw file looked like.

I didn't touch the sliders for blacks, brightness or contrast which I am assuming are the default values but will stand corrected since I never use the program.

[Alfred Forns]

Thanks for the repost Mike

.. got one question for all .... we work the image in Adobe RGB 1998 then for posting convert to sRBG .. narrower color space .. will this make a difference to the whites?

... either way on this image is splitting hairs, some can call it good other chose to call it blown, just an opinion.

[Fabs Forns]

The bird is flying away from you but the look-back pose saves the day. Light is a little harsh; I might try to tone down the whites, which appear bright but not blown.

Since you quoted me Doug, I went by what you said, I am not in the group that downloads an image and puts and eyedropper to them to prove my point. So I wondered, if by your own words the whites were not blown, why make them darker.
Should I not trust the words of a moderator??????

[Doug Brown]

I'm not the type to pixel peep either Fabs; what I said was that the whites appeared bright but not blown. I did not inspect a histogram originally. The light looked harsh and some of the whites had a very contrasty appearance in the OP. By toning down the brightest whites, you reduce image contrast. To me that makes for a more pleasing image to the eye when viewing a white bird in many cases. That's why I don't photograph Snow Geese at the Bosque at one in the afternoon, preferring instead the nicer light of the early morning or the late afternoon.

Just because whites aren't blown doesn't mean that I don't adjust the exposure in post. Sometimes I push the exposure a little further to the right. Sometimes I bring it to the left. Sometimes I leave it as is. I gave my honest opinion about this image, as I do for every image that I critique. Whether you trust what I have to say is entirely up to you.

[Fabs Forns]

Agreed. Just make sure you pick another way the next time.