Baby Killdeer

[Mike Lentz]

I came across a Killdeer nest and slowly worked my way in and was able to get some images as they were playing around. Lucky to have wildflowers growing in the area as well.

http://www.pbase.com/image/125110495.jpg

Nikon D300 ~ Nikkor 300mm F/2.8 with 1.4x TC
ISO 400 ~ F/8 ~ 1/3200 sec ~ - 2/3 EV

[Jim Fenton]

Mike...

Sweet image!

I think that if you could up the exposure selectively on the little one, it would help tone down the eye draw to the blazingly white daisies? ( I do like the daisies in the image)

[Axel Hildebrandt]

At first I was wondering how you got this little guy to go to your setup. :) I like the angle, sharpness and also the BG and only wish the eye were sunlit, maybe you could lighten it some.

[Alfred Forns]

Really sweet Mike !!! Glad you were able to work your way to this bird !!! Just the mentioned tweaks, getting some detail in the flowers by increasing contrast would be great (maybe possible) and lightening the little guy would be a snap !! Big Congrats !!!

[Stu Bowie]

Hey Mike, cute little guy - all legs and fluff. Lovely all round setting, and I agree to try and lighten the eye.

[David Thomasson]

Love it! The flowers are great for scale. Fairly easy masking here. I would bring up the foreground details (excepting the
white petals), darken the background just a tad, and sharpen for details. I would be (and wasn't!) above enhancing the
eye color (which is there, though dimly) and even adding a catchlight (which isn't there).

animated gif (560K):

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/9813/kildeer2.gif

[Fabs Forns]

Hey Mike, how adorable, love the flowers and the tiny pup. David got mu thoughts, the chick needed to be lightened. Way to go!

[Mike Lentz]

David, you do FANTASTIC work! Thanks for taking the time to do this to my image, I've seen it done on others and have admired your abilities. I appreciate the kind words as well.

Al, I agree, using the Tonal Contrast in NIK is one of my favorite tools and would be perfect here. I use that tool selectively on a large amount of my images actually. :)

Axel, yeah, I figured some people would think that, thats why I made sure and advertised this was not a setup. :)

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Mike, splendid. Love the flowers but they put you in a difficult-to-expose situation. But a little PP work should do wonders. What an awesome moment. These are the opportunities you live for.

[John Ippolito]

Outstanding job on this, Mike. David has taken the minor adjustments in the right direction. I really, really like the image! Well done.

[David Thomasson]

David, you do FANTASTIC work! Thanks for taking the time to do this to my image, I've seen it done on others and have admired your abilities. I appreciate the kind words as well.


Thanks, Mike. You did the hard part! :cool: