Another Shoebill

[Ken Watkins]

I like this but would just like some opinions on the OOF foliage in lower right corner.

Does this distract from the image?

Taken in the papyrus swamps on the Southern edge of Lake Albert, Tanzania 22nd June 2012

From a small and rather unsteady boat.

EOS 1D MkIV

500mm F4 hand-held

F6.3, ISO 800, 1/1250

Almost full frame

[David Salem]

Very nice portrait of this species. Exposure and details are good. If the reeds in front were closer to the bird and somewhat in focus I think it would have been better. The green band over the feather detracts IMO. Good Job...

David

[Sanjeevprakash]

Nice portrait of this Unusual Bird Ken.The features are sharp and the exposure is perfect.IMO the OOF grass adds value to the drama here.Nice presentation.

[Melissa Groo]

I think this is a wonderful portrait. I like the framing of all the green very much, and how it sets off the muted grays of the bird. It's too bad about that one OOF reed going across, I too think that detracts. But overall a really lovely image. I might give a smidgen more room up top, above that one tallest crest feather.

[John Chardine]

Hi Ken- Ever since I was young and saw one of these at London Zoo I've been in love with them. Never seen one in the wild. Beautiful detail and soft light with an "easy" sharpness which I like. The left hand of the two green "bits" is unfortunate but there are lots of things you can do to remove. Just desaturating the area works in this case because the BG feathers are neutral grey. I added a bit of contrast to the affected area as well.

[gail bisson]

What a great bird and portrait.
John's repost really helps.
I agree with Melissa for a bit more room at the top,
Gail

[Robert Holguin]

Excellent portrait. Very nice green background, excellent details, and repost takes care of that green band.
Well done.

[Arthur Morris]

Nothing could detract from that bill. That said, killer tip & repost from John. I loved the first one and I love this one. It works great as a vertical. Are they usually this tame?

[Ken Watkins]

Thanks to everybody for your comments which are much appreciated, John's re-post is wonderful and works very well. I will give this method a try, thanks for that John

Art,
This was only my second only sighting of these birds, we saw two the previous day but virtually totally obscured by reeds. This one was certainly confident and stayed near the boat at the waters edge for around 50 minutes, there was a youngster further back in the reeds so it might have been protecting it. There are quite a few Shoebills in the area but no permanent boats operating, a great business opportunity for somebody I think.

[Richard Unsworth]

A totalling charming portrait of a fabulous bird; I too never saw in the wild despite many days in the swamp/lake areas of Central Africa

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks to everybody for your comments which are much appreciated, John's re-post is wonderful and works very well. I will give this method a try, thanks for that John

Art,
This was only my second only sighting of these birds, we saw two the previous day but virtually totally obscured by reeds. This one was certainly confident and stayed near the boat at the waters edge for around 50 minutes, there was a youngster further back in the reeds so it might have been protecting it. There are quite a few Shoebills in the area but no permanent boats operating, a great business opportunity for somebody I think.

Thanks Ken. The good news is that you made the most of your incredible opportunity.

[Ken Watkins]

Art,

One of my main reasons for going to Uganda was to try and find one of these, I was extremely lucky!

If I may I would just like to put in a plug for Uganda it is an incredible destination for birding , and a fabulously friendly place to visit.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Ken. After a long absence I am returning to Tanzania with Todd and Denise next summer as I have cleaned up some health/gut issues that kept me away for many years :) So who knows on Uganda....

[Ken Watkins]

Art,
It is not far from Tanzania (in fact next door) if you think of adding it on please let me know and I will let you have the benefit of my limited experience.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Ken. We are pretty much set in stone for this trip :).

[Ofer Levy]

An impressive head shot. Repost is nicer and another vote for a bit more room at the top.

[Ken Watkins]

Ofer,

Thanks very much, not wishing to make excuses for myself, but I was a little hampered on lens choice, the bag containing my MkIII and 70-200mm had been left on the beach (luckily it was picked up by our launching crew).

Later I managed to get our Australian lady travelling companion to lend me her 28-300mm.

Plus of course the boat was riding up and down

[Daniel Cadieux]

A fantastic to start with, only made even better by John's very nice repost. That bill is quite the showy one, and I like the sly smile shape it has. Apart from more room above I really like the composition. Well done Ken!

[Frank Schauf]

Beautiful portrait, great details and sharpness.

[Morkel Erasmus]

I'd love to see these one day. Fabulous portrait, Ken, the OOF greens didn't bug me that much but John's repost took it up a notch!

[Ken Watkins]

I would just like to report that John kindly provided me with a step by step guided of what he did, I tried it and it worked. How anybody can figure all of these tools out is beyond me

[John Chardine]

Hi Ken- It's a challenge and ultimately you get know a relatively small proportion of them, which you add to your tool kit for the future. As you discover more, so your tool kit gets bigger.

The other trick I mentioned to Ken is using the Paint brush tool with Color blending mode. This paints colour but does not alter detail. This and the desat (Sponge) tool have a big advantage over cloning or Content-aware fills in this regard, but they don't work in every situation.

[Arthur Morris]

I would just like to report that John kindly provided me with a step by step guided of what he did, I tried it and it worked. How anybody can figure all of these tools out is beyond me

Ken or John, If someone would be kind enough to post the step by step here I would appreciate it greatly.

[John Chardine]

This is what I sent to Ken (I don't pretend it's an advanced technique or anything like that. It just works for me):

I use Photoshop CS6 but previous versions had the Saturation/Desaturation tool- the Sponge tool, with the Dodge and Burn tools. For your image I set the Mode to Desaturate, the brush size to more or less cover the green stripe and set the Hardness to 0. Flow rate was set to 100% but this could be lower, you would just have to go over the green patch more. I then painted over the green patch until it was gone. It left behind some lower contrast over the area (this is common with this technique) so I selected the area with a Quickmask and increased the contrast with Curves. I just did the image again and this time I also touched up with the Paint brush set to blending mode Color. Then with the eyedropper (Alt/Opt) I picked a nice middle grey from the neck of the bird and painted over the patch. The key here is the Color blending mode which does not destroy detail, just paints over with the colour you have selected. This latter technique can be used on its own without the Desaturation tool.