Welcome Swallow Quest #3

I was virtually on the water pointing up to get this shot. I had no idea if I would even get any in the frame as that was pretty tricky while hanging upside-down looking through the viewfinder at 90 degrees and they are only about two - three feet above the water surface most of the time.

Reminds me of a C160 cargo plane coming in to land, fat belly and all, nothing like the jet they usually resemble. Quite remarkable how they adapt their shape.

I thought I could see some banding/posterisation in the jpg file - there is nothing I could see in the 16 bit TIFF file - it there a way to prevent that from happening when converting to jpg ?

This is nearly full frame (I think about 6500px x 4500px).

1/8000s iso4000 f8

A1 100-400GM

Attachment 192055

I was hoping for some better eye contact but it was tough getting anything in the frame from that position so I was pretty pleased to get this one as it is approaching the same detail as static images of similar sized birds - although I am sure some of you could extract more from the file than I have.

Definitely will have to figure out a better way to shoot from that position to be able to do so for extended periods.

Comments welcome as always.

Really really sweet frame. Bkg is great and I like the angle a lot. I shot a lot of swallows this year so I can appreciate the challenges here. Very well done.

I think this is your best one yet Duncan.....The BG colours look real good against the bird...Lovely details on the bird and sharp....I know they are so difficult to capture.....but I am sure you will agree that wings fully up or down, would take this up a few notches....

Well done..

Will

Hi Duncan ... another very cool swallow image .
The pose might not be as good as the previous postings , but I could greatly live with it if this would be mine .
You did the best job so far in terms processing , IMHO , specially you nailed the sharpening and the fine details rendering .
Tones are looking better as well in my book , not that drastic in contrast as some of the previous postings ... well for for sure a matter of taste at time s.

So far I am not really excited ( in all of your postings ) about the color rendering you choose , but no big deal as color is many times down to different tastes .

Cool image ....

TFS Andreas

nice capture of this bullet, great details + sharpness. the light was not your nest friend here, I think you had to do quite a bit of highlight/shadow adjustment which worked well but has made the swallow look a bit unnatural, a bit like those HDR landscape shots. but all else is great , did I mention the pretty BG?

TFS

Quote:

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Originally Posted by arash_hazeghi

nice capture of this bullet, great details + sharpness. the light was not your nest friend here, I think you had to do quite a bit of highlight/shadow adjustment which worked well but has made the swallow look a bit unnatural, a bit like those HDR landscape shots. but all else is great , did I mention the pretty BG?

TFS

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I'll be the first to admit to struggling with post processing although on this one I think the light was considerably better than on most of the others. In retrospect I was probably a bit heavy handed in lifting the shadows.

The original frame below.


Attachment 192061

How do the colours look on this one ? The sharpening doesn't look right to me now but ignore that for the moment.

Maybe a bit too dark for me still.

Attachment 192062

IMO the version in pane #7 is the best one, but if mine Ièd tone down the brightest top area. I gotta say that I am impressed with the original frame (pane #6) on how you got the bird in a great spot and size in the frame - you have a lot of pixels on the subject to work with. Sweet BG.

The last repost is my favorite one. Not easy to get these eratic little birds.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.