Great Bustard

[Richard Unsworth]

Hi

Captured on the road to Salto a small village near Castro Verde Portugal this afternoon.
30 C and full sun behind
Rare close encounter. I was parked in my car when this bomber appeared

Lower ISO would have helped as a bit noisy.
General adjustment with curves etc and catchlight added.

Pleased. a RARE priviledge
1/6400 ISO 800 F6.3 HH FROMCAR A1 SERVO

[Richard Stern]

Hi,

A great capture of a great bird. I agree on the noise, especially the head, and I wonder if positioning the bird a bit lower and to the right, so that it's jumping more into the frame, would be even better. Great details on the back, and there is a good sense of massiveness about the wings.

Richard

[Loi Nguyen]

Nice bird. I'm surprised that there is that much noise at ISO-800. Not sure which camera you are using. Could be due to under-exposure as well as I noticed a fairly high SS. The head could use some more sharpening and the bird and BG some NR reduction, I think.

[Richard Unsworth]

Hi

Camera is 7D lens is 100-400 forgot to mention lol

Nothing to say about that and noise thats down to me but the 7D has its moments if not treated well lol, was a manual exposure, forgot that as well
must have been the excitement of this capture; dont think a bif of these has ever been posted?

Anyways, reworked the raw, used Topaz to remove noise, layers - thus selective, actually wasnt as bad as the OP suggested.
reverse s curve worked good I think
selective color boost of 4 and 4 on black and neutrals
vibrance +10, sat +10
smart sharpen selectively at 100, 0.5
dodge at 3% on eye midtones
repositioned as suggested

I think this is a female, anyone able to confirm?

[Richard Unsworth]

It would be good to put the image up as well

[Gerald Kelberg]

Hi Richard,

Good to see a posting of a Great Bustard in flight like this... you did well to get the capture. Looks like a female to me, too.

I don't think the revised PP has really helped the image - between the NR and the reverse s-curve, you seem to have lost a lot of detail and colour.

Maybe need another crack at it!

Regards,

Gerald

[Richard Unsworth]

I totally agree Gerald, I have the raw so can redo. tbh I have some better frames anyways.