Point Your Shadow at the Colt

[Arthur Morris]

This image of a young Sandhill Crane colt was created at Indian Lake Estates LE on Thursday morning with the tripod-mounted Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens, the Canon 2x EF Extender III (Teleconverter), and the Canon EOS-1D X. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/400 sec. at f/9 in Av mode. The exposure was confirmed via histogram check. Central sensor (by necessity)/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF on a spot just below the forward part of the wing bud active at the moment of exposure. Clickhere if you missed the Rear Focus Tutorial.

The key to the success of the image above was going long focal length and getting on the bird's level by working from the slope of the adjacent canal. I recognized the shade of blue as one that would be dramatically enhanced by a layer of White Neutralizer. That was followed by a layer of my 50/50 Tonal Contrast/Detail Extractor recipe reduced to about 50% opacity.

To learn more abnout NIK Color Efex Pro and to see more baby crane images, see "What?, No Itinerary?"

As for the image, don't be shy; all comments are welcome.

[vishaljadhav]

Wonderful image Bhai.
details on the bird are lovely and the blue in the bg is a big plus.
thanks for sharing other details , helps in understanding more and learning

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Artie,

A wonderful image. It portrays the soft feathers (more like furr I guess!) nicely, while still rendering a sharp image. The low angle really helps separate this guy from the bg.

I do wonder if you could have moved just a bit to the left to get rid of the rather distracting vertical element along the left portion of the bg. I still think you would have had a nice angle (with respect to the light) and good head positioning with respect to the camera.

Miguel

[Arthur Morris]

Agree. I am not a big fan of the tree line but the pose and the light were there. Removing it would be a pain and it does make some sort of a frame.... This bird was quite actively feeding and moving....

[Robert Holguin]

Very nice shot.
Great light, terrific pose, excellent details, and great shooting angle.
I personally find the brown element on the left a tad distracting, but it's still a great image.
Well done.

[David Salem]

Nice shot of this long legged baby. Exposed well and nice detail in the legs and the down feathers. Perfect catch light. I agree about the OOF element on the left. Nice work.

[arash_hazeghi]

nice light, pose and great sharpness, the only distracting element is the OOF tree(?) on the left, it takes some work but it can be removed. applied fine sharpening for more pop

Attachment 125772

[Frank Schauf]

Nice soft feel to this portrait.

[Shawn Zierman]

Light quality is excellent. Perfect shooting perspective.
Yikes! Arash did a great job with the repost!

[Dennis Zaebst]

Commenting without reading anyone else's comment. Great image with good potential if the OOF object at left is removed or cropped; plus a crop off the top might help the composition, maybe a sliver off he bottom too.

[Geir Jensen]

I feel that it is lacking a bit of sharpness. Especially in front of the head. I would also crop the top of the image. BG doesn't bother me.

[Arthur Morris]

nice light, pose and great sharpness, the only distracting element is the OOF tree(?) on the left, it takes some work but it can be removed. applied fine sharpening for more pop. Attachment 125772

Thanks Arash. Looks good but may I assume that you lost some of the detail in the fine feathers on the rear of the bird?

[Dave Mills]

Hi Art, Curious to know why you leave so much neg space on top. I know some photographers do this if the image is used for publishing purposes...

[Arthur Morris]

Dave, I almost always leave more room above the bird than below. Here a bit off the top would be fine but I do like to keep the 3X2 proportions. It is likely that a moment before that the bird was standing tall.

[Arthur Morris]

ps: I only just now learned how to keep 3X2 for all crops.... Amazingly, the method I am using does not involve the use of the Crop Tool. If anyone knows how to keep 3X@ with the Crop Tool while maintaining full resolution I would love to hear it. Lots of folks have told me that doing so was easy but when they try to show me all but one have failed. And I forgot what they did!

[arash_hazeghi]

the butt feathers were lost a bit indeed, need to work on full size TIFF to keep those...

do you mean you want to lock the aspect ratio when using the crop tool?

[Arthur Morris]

the butt feathers were lost a bit indeed, need to work on full size TIFF to keep those...

do you mean you want to lock the aspect ratio when using the crop tool?

With hours of painstaking work on the TIFF?

Yes to keep the aspect ration at 3X2 with the crop tool while maintaining the full resolution.

[John Chardine]

Artie- To maintain a 3 x 2 aspect ratio with no resampling- in Photoshop CS6, choose Crop tool and type in 3 in the first box, upper left, and 2 in the second. This worked when I just tried it.

Love the little crane chick. Wish we had seen one in FL a month ago, but I guess that was a bit early for them. I think the space at the top provides a nice balance to the image.