Marsh Harrier chiaroscuro

Late in the session and the sun was getting very low. A sliver of light was shining through between the two small hides. This female Marsh Harrier was feeding on some remains of the bait on the ground in front of the hide and from time to time would look up to check for rivals. And sometimes the shaft of light would catch her head and face. After a number of attempts I got a good head angle and the chiaroscuro effect I was looking for!

The image was made on the Sony A9II and FE200-600 lens with 1.4 Teleconverter for 840mm. Shutter speed 1/1600 sec at f/9.0, ISO 1250.

In Lightroom, starting with Adobe Standard profile, added some Exposure, brightened the whites and softened the blacks. I have applied the Enhance Denoise, then on the DNG file used a gradient mask to darken the lower left corner and used Color Picker to adjust the colour of the bird and the background to taste.

Then in PS, cleaned up the beak using the remove and clone tools ( just a yucky piece of chicken!). Resized for output and sharpened with USM.

I hope you like it! Comments and suggestions warmly appreciated!

Gerald

HI Gerald ... good to hear that you achieved your goal , congrats to a fine .
i do the image as presented , for the most part . I am not 100 % sure about the composition .... might be just me .
other than that all does look very good to me .
interesting to read that you seem to change the color profile very often ... wondering why ???!!! As everything can be achieved within LR without changing the profile , but your call .

cheers and tfs Andreas

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In Lightroom, starting with Adobe Standard profile,

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Perfect Gerald, 100% correct in your action.

OK, still viewing on the MBP, but it looks quite posterised in the BKG, I would just darken the whole thing, but constantly check you don't clip it, leaving the face lit in the nice light. Comp, I would bring it in on the LHS, RoT's, just my take, not going to sit on the fence.

How much does the 1.4 add to the DoF?

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Then in PS, cleaned up the beak using the remove and clone tools ( just a yucky piece of chicken!).

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Don't you think it tells a story? I wonder if the images looses something in the clean-up?

Glad you are testing the waters in you PP and being creative within reason.

TFS
Steve

Hi Andreas,

Good to hear from you! Glad you like this one!

Stating what Colour Profile I used is a reminder to myself to check and see which is going to give me the better start. I found that if I stick with the default Adobe Color, it is a bit harsh and gives me a bit of a false view on the colours.

I have been very rusty/lazy with my PP, and so this is really helping me to get things back on a good base!

Looking forward to seeing you posting more!

Cheers, Gerald

Thanks Steve,

It was a conscious choice not to go total dark out on the background - I like to leave some suggestion of there being a background and not black curtain.

At this distance to the subject, I wouldn't expect the teleconverter to make any difference to the DOF. It would remain very slim.

Agree that if the scrap of food is something interesting, it should stay, but when it is just a nasty little piece of chicken flesh - no, it doesn't add anything!

Thanks for your comments.

Gerald

Absolutely super! if you are going to crop part of the bird I would suggest crop say 3" off the RHS.

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At this distance to the subject, I wouldn't expect the teleconverter to make any difference to the DOF. It would remain very slim.

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Sorry Gerald, what I meant was, when attached does it go from 6.3 to f/8 or 9?

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Agree that if the scrap of food is something interesting, it should stay, but when it is just a nasty little piece of chicken flesh - no, it doesn't add anything!

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Fine.

Very cool.... I like it a lot...maybe just some more sharpening on the face.