Blue winged Kookuburra

[Richard Mc Donald]

Canon 1D MK1V - EF800 f5.6
f8.0
1/500
ISO800

Another family member of my previous post taken on the same morning.

Added some fill light, contrast, slight boost of the blues and sharpening of course.

96070

Richard

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Richard, love this guy, seem like the bill is bigger than the tail feathers. I am on work monitor, was there a color contrast. Is that why you boosted the blues or just for additional saturation. Might lighten spots to highlight areas (e.g., the eye area). I like the composition and use of the rule of thirds - might take a tad from the right. The branches are busy but my eye goes to the subject.

Was this a low light setting - was soft flash and option -Thanks for sharing keep em coming

[John Chardine]

Hi Richard- Lovely to see. Scenes with bright backgrounds and duller subjects are difficult to render. If you expose for the bird, the bright parts of the BG would possibly be overexposed- maybe that's OK. I agree with Jeff- some off the right would place the bird in a better position in the frame. Agree also with the suggestion of some fill-flash to brighten the subject up.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Richard, I like your images of these little cuties. I agree with points made above, and definitely would crop away a lot from the right. The bird is right in the center of the frame, which we really like to avoid for better composition. Keep in mind that the eye tends to follow the light, so when you have a very bright background it pulls the eye away from the subject. It's ok to have light in your bg, but you then need to make your subject at least as bright. In this image I would suggest toning down the bg and brightening the bird, as mentioned by John and Jeff.

[Gerald Kelberg]

This is the first time I have seen an image of this very cool little bird - wonderful expression. Agree with the above comments regarding crop and branch clutter.

I'm wondering about the feather detail - all seems very smooth - wondering if you haven't applied noise reduction on the subject, accidentally or on purpose. Maybe it is just my unfamiliarity with Kookuburras. :S3: Your file size is quite small at 135k, you can probably get more punch if you go up near the 200k limit.

Love to see more of this guy!

[Kerry Perkins]

Richard, I couldn't resist working with this one a bit - I hope you don't mind. This is the result of about five minutes of work in PS CS5. I used Topaz Lens Effects to make a dark vignette, then Nik "darken/lighten center" filter to adjust the bird's luminance relative to the background. I realize that not everyone will have these filters, but they are nothing more than shortcuts to do the work quickly. All these effects can be done manually in Photoshop. I also brought out some detail with USM, as there is detail lurking even in the jpeg.

[Richard Mc Donald]

Many thanks everyone for the feedback especially Kerry. What I have learnt is that my post processing can only be described as prehistoric even though the cupboard is full of unread books on editing.

Richard