South Island Pied Oystercatcher

South Island Pied Oystercatcher. This subspecies of the cosmopolitan Pied Oystercatcher belongs to New Zealand. I captured this from a kayak, as the oystercatchers are much easier to approach, with caution of course.

The shot was taken around late afternoon for a good display of light. I like the composition in this image and the eye's catchlight. Though unfortunately, on a five megapixel camera, it is not very visible when the image has scaled down to such a small size.

Fujifilm Finepix S5600 (digital compact)
Manual Mode
1/1000 sec, f/3.4, ISO 64 and 380mm optical zoom enabled.
From memory I did use flash, but according to the technical properties I did not.

Please point out the ups and downs of this photograph. It was one of my best from the day. Thanks all.

Paul

Hi Paul

Got some suggestions You are going for the environmental image Good If so treat the rear elements with the same importance as the main subject Would probably have in another location other than the front bird Tough to do the way those guys move around

Another thing to do is crop the bird to make him larger in frame I did so an will post below Also straighten the horizon with the ruler tool Did a levels adjustment Added a little black to the neutral channel and some curves Then gave it a little more warmth

Al, thanks for your comments. Okay, well close up works better, I guess. I thought the background birds worked well though. Rather than get a portrait image I was going for a more wider perspective - although any closer to the bird probably would have caused it to walk away. True, the crop works well, up to an extent. I think it reduces the perspective a bit negatively though. This is because of the background, where the original image looks more eye-level. Also, I refuse to digitally edit my photographs. I can bear with cropping up to an extent, but on my current camera model, the quality dissolves rather quickly. I'm looking to purchase a Canon EOS 400D as my first DSLR, but due to school commitments I don't have the time to get a job!

Thanks again.

Paul

Hi Paul I fully appreciate what you are saying regarding manipulation

The image that comes out from the scanner is not perfect and needs to be adjusted so it looks like he scene you photograph
Images coming out of the camera are like are like un-processed film

Were it becomes different and interesting is cloning, adding canvas etc That is what I would call digital manipulation and it should be applied according to how a person feels about it

I do miss film in some ways Particularly the darkroom work It was a special time for me Did it since I was in HS so you can imagine how I felt when it was over !!!! btw if you want the closest thing to film itself imagine making the images
in jpeg and setting the camera controls would be it !!!

Al, appreciate your comments but with all due respect, if I am to become professional and end up selling my photographs, all this adjusting of "image brightness and contrast" is unforgiving and a bit too clinical and still refuse to digitally alter, apart from the occasional crop. Clearly you edit your images displayed on the avian website you jointly contribute to, but if I am to be convinced I'd have to hear from quite a few other photographers that they treat their image in Photoshop before putting it up for sale. No offense and I am not trying to discredit you and your work. Thanks,

Paul

Thought I should add that this was taken on New Year's Day 2008. The location is a lagoon just inside the river in which a village called Toko Mouth resides. Otago, New Zealand. Always SIPO's around as well as terns and gulls.

Paul,

Let me chime in and say that all professional photographers using digital need to "alter" their images. All of them use RAW format, which is just data and puts the control in the hands of the photographer.
What you are doing is letting the camera do that for you.

There is nothing derogatory nor cheating in trying to make your images look better. Actually, it used to be done in the darkroom, with the technical disabilities of the times.

There is nothing wrong in using Photoshop to optimize your images. It is today's technology and if you are not willing to embrace, and mind you, you have every right to do so, you will only be loosing in the opportunities offered to you.

I am saying this in an intent to help and put you up to date in what goes on in the professional world. If you feel strongly about not using tools that have been developed for our use, you have every right to do so, and it would be your choice.
Just wanted to make clear that it is widely accepted to do so.

The reason I came into this anti-digital manipulation stance was because I entered a photograph into a wildlife photography competition held in my region. The rules included no digital manipulation. And I remember the first year I entered one of my images received an award as being Highly Commended - when I look back on it I remember I had adjusted brightness and applied warming effects with a photo program. Clearly the judges and organisers has no idea. From then on I've refused to edit photographs. Please don't tell me that entrants in the Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year such as Andy Rouse do this? :P

Thanks for the input Fabs but I am still not convinced. I really had no idea professionals had these underlying secrets.

I like the image and the end result crop.. I think using photoshop is a must.. at least for sharpening or whatever depending
on what each shot needs..less is always better but you never no what you will have to deal with in each shot.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Paul Davey

The reason I came into this anti-digital manipulation stance was because I entered a photograph into a wildlife photography competition held in my region. The rules included no digital manipulation. And I remember the first year I entered one of my images received an award as being Highly Commended - when I look back on it I remember I had adjusted brightness and applied warming effects with a photo program. Clearly the judges and organisers has no idea. From then on I've refused to edit photographs. Please don't tell me that entrants in the Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year such as Andy Rouse do this? :P

Thanks for the input Fabs but I am still not convinced. I really had no idea professionals had these underlying secrets.

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Paul, if you read the rules, they allow color adjustments, sharpening, and adjusting brightness, contrast, saturation etc are widely accepted and not considered manipulation per se. Taking away branches or adding an animal will not be allowed. The latter would be considered manipulation.

Andy Rouse is my friend and he does optimize his images.
George De Camp, (hi George), one of the moderators here, had an image honored in the BBC this year, and I can assure you he had to use some kind of processing to present it.

Robert O"Toole, another BBC honoree, and one of the Publishers here, also optimizes his work.

I have an image hanging at the Smithsonian right now, winner of the Birds category in Nature's Best Windland Smith Rice International Awards, and I used noise reduction, curves (the professional way to add brightness and contrast) and sharpening.

In the film days, you did not need to do this. In digital, it is a must.
If you are taking your images as jpegs, the your camera is optimizing them for you and the latests models let you decide how much.

I hope this clarifies your conception of manipulation :)

Hi gang!

For sure you have to tweak, actually same as with film but they do the work for you. They sometimes adjust the contrast and color that is why you don't always get the same results from lab to lab...but that is another story.

The problem with digital camera is now we have to do the adjusting. A crop here and there is not only accepted, it is expected and stated in the rules. Of course if you add a 2nd bird or remove a person (or something) from the image that is a no no for a contest but for your wall you can do what you like. Just make it subtle and keep the main points intact.

My image that won Highly Commended in Birds category in the Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year Contest contest this year was cropped to about 70% of the original (cropped 30% off the full image) as well as levels and sharpening. We had to send the RAW file as well to show them what we did. If it were a problem it would have been disqualified but it was not and is hanging now in London in the Natural History Museum.

Adding or subtracting "content" from images is what they have a problem with not cropping, curves, levels, etc.

Let me just add one more quick point to the mix here.

1. When you shoot RAW your camera spits out just the bare file....no salt and pepper added.
2. When you shoot JPG your camera spits out the result with the canned seasonings your camera has added

. .. you add the salt and pepper yourself in post processing your RAW file.

Sometimes you just don't have the settings perfect in your camera, no reason you should not tweak them later. Better to try and get them right initially for sure.

This information is staggering. Congratulations on the HC, but at the moment I don't feel right about performing this stuff on my work. Perhaps if I get a DSLR I'll start experimenting, but am not holding my breath for that...

Don't get me wrong; at the birth of my photography I did all sorts of editing to my photos. One rare bird I captured had bands on its legs, so I cloned them out. In my greed I saved/overwrited the original, and subsequently deleted the whole thing when I started to realise the authenticity and life had been lost. I still kick myself over it today because it was a good shot.

Paul

Paul, the bottom line is that whatever choices you make - either film or digital - your picture is going to be manipulated one way or another. Fujifilm Velvia is a great example of a choice many professional photographers have used (including Andy Rouse) in order to create an artifically green (but decidedly pleasing) richly colored rendition of the scene in front of them. How many of us have seen something, or gone to somewhere they saw in those photographs and been disappointed to find out that actually the colors aren't really like that? They could have chosen a different film that produced a more natural (neutral) rendition, but they didn't. Does that make Andy Rouse a big fake? I'll leave you to decide.

Either way, fixing basic issues like curves and sharpening do not in any way compensate for a bad image. Cropping can help with framing up to a point, but if your composition is poor to begin with or your ability to expose correctly isn't good, there's little that will save it. For me that means that your aim to take the right picture in camera is absolutely right - try to get the framing, composition and exposure dead on in the camera. Personally though, I would not consider basic manipulation as described above to be to the detriment of that good initial photograph. After all, by virtue of choosing to display it on a computer screen, we've affected the way it is viewed - and when we print it, the choice of printer, color profile and paper all conspire to create a manipulation of the original image so it looks 'nice'.

Cameras - for a whole host of reasons - can't always deliver the scene to you the same way your eye saw it, or the way you remember it. If the camera can't deliver what you saw 'out of the box' and needs some help to normalize things, I think that's just fine.

Interesting discussion here. Is there any nature photographer who perhaps uses digital and doesn't alter their photographs? I understand JPG-RAW processing may be considered an alteration of sorts, but everyone expects and knows that happens to the prints they are about to purchase. I thought the market would be more attuned to looking for authentic photographs now that most today seem to be externally edited. Quoting a passage from magazine Outdoor Photography "the market is saturated with very clinical-looking images, which in turn inflates buyers expectations". No?

Personally I doubt it, but I'm interested to see if anybody can name one.

Meanwhile, you might find this to be interesting amd relevant reading: http://ronbigelow.com/articles/manip...nipulation.htm

j.