Siblings

[dankearl]

Thanks to a morning phone call from a friend, these two immature Tundra Swans were at a local
inner city Duck pond this morning.
The Swans are in the hundreds right now in the local wildlife refuges outside of the city, but this pair of young birds
managed to find a pond with the local Mallards and domesticated ducks to hang out in.
It was raining enough to look bad and not enough to look interesting, so I did blur the BG.
I am struggling with color balance, I get comments every post on a magenta caste so I adjusted the
color WB in camera today, I would appreciate input on that, I obviously am a bad judge of it.

1/640, f8, iso 800, 600mm (300 w/2x), D800, handheld

DSC_3066bp3.jpg

[laurie golden]

Dan,

Sorry I cannot help you on color balance, I just don't see it myself. Did you switch from auto to cloudy? If anything this looks a little green but I would expect that with the tree reflection on the water.

I like the two juvies with the low angle and being so close. I do wonder that happened to the parents. I have only seen them in family groups in the winter.

[Don Nelson]

Dan - Nice shot over at Westmoreland.
You don't have a magenta cast -- but you now have a green cast.
For those with photoshop - copy and duplicate the image then blur->average.
The best cleanup I've got is the use Nik Efex2.0 -> White neutralizer, and sample on the light grayish shadows on the left bird's wing, or right bird's throat. The greenish tint is there. Effect is subtle but the birds aren't white as posted. Its also in the water - you may want to mask the birds to make them white but preserve the greens of the water. (you added green in the camera...just overshot the correction a bit).
I like the position of the birds - strange they don't have their parents with them.
And was the male canvasback still there?
Don

[Don Nelson]

Dan
Its subtle, but in this post, I've masked so the correction is ONLY applied within the area of the white box (markers at corners).

[dankearl]

Hey Don, thanks a bunch.
I don't have photoshop, but will tweak my camera settings a bit again.
I always use auto WB, but adjust the color in the picture setting and I did tweak it
today towards a warmer hue.
You are correct about Westmoreland, I never go there until today when I heard about the pair.
I did not see a canvasback, a couple of Wood Ducks with the usual Mallard crowd.
I don't know why Crystal Springs just a Half mile away gets so many wild ducks and Westmoreland does not.
What do you make of the OBOL report of Snowies here again this year?

[Don Nelson]

Dan
Yaw
Its another invasion year. One reported in Lake Oswego two days ago. One near Sherwood today. Transients.
Also reported in Vancouver and outside Seattle. None in Coastal Washington or Oregon yet. Last year first date along the coast was Nov 15.
Give me a call sometime I have more details.
Don

[christopher galeski]

nice capture,and the rpost from Don,is better,like the angle of the heads on the pair,some nice detail.thanks.

[Randy Stout]

Dan:

Good low shooting angle, interaction between the swans,rather somber feel.

Def. the green cast as pointed out.

Always fun to find a new spot to shoot.

Cheers

Randy

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Dan, good low shooting angle, and love the sharp detail on their heads. Apart from the green cast, you have exposed them nicely, as the plumage is showing up. I like what Don has done in pane # 3.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice interaction shot, Dan. The green cast is obvious and Don's repost is an improvement. I don't really know the technics but I'll copy over your picture and will try to experiment with the green cast. I hope you don't mind.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Nice duo here, and good low angle. Techs look good, but green cast mentioned. Although Don's repost is an improvement I still feel it is green too...in this case the easiest fix would be to add 15 to 20 points of magenta in "Colour Balance" (for those who use PS).

[arash_hazeghi]

this image has a very strong green cast, it is hard to correct this in JPEG because of color compression. Here is my try but you need to go back to RAW and set the white point manually

[dankearl]

Thanks for taking the time Arash.
Your version (and Don's) is what I was meaning to portray.
The Swans were so endearing, acting like orphans (which they may be), and I tried to
capture that.
I will retune the camera and hope to get it right next time.
I have a hard time discerning color caste obviously and thanks for helping out.