Pied Kingfisher with tilapia

[Carl Walker]

Canon 1 D MK IV, Canon 300mm f2.8 MK II plus 2 x extender
ISO 640, f8, 1/400 sec

ACR work
PSE 9 - Level adjustments on bird and background done separately. Some clone work in background. NR on bird and Background.

I need advice on getting more detail from the blacks and there is a clipped area on the whites on an area of the bird. I tried darkening the highlights there but it does not seem right. As for the crop I could have added more on the RHS now that I see the end result. I know that the leaves are probably distracting especially beneath the fish but I 'd like to hear your opinions on other alternatives other than cloning them out.
I think it also needs added sharpening now that i have seen it resized.


Look forward to your C & C

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Carl,

Nice post tell me more bout the field techniques; tripod, hide..distance. The first thing that comes to mind is what a great shot and difficult this species is to capture. The opportunities here are the twig in the lower left hang corner, the catch light in the eye and sharpening. I might work the eye and reduce the catch-light and darken the surroundings....the twig is an easy clone and regarding critical detail...what is your sharpening strategy..moreover using USM, Smart, plug-in or other?

This is a great moment in nature and capturing this guy get am A+...please keep em coming and thanks for posting.

One more thing: nice exposure techs..f8 nice pick assume center sensor on the eye or head/neck?.

[Carl Walker]

Thanks Jeff. I was driving over a low level bridge and heard the birds typical call just behind me 4 or 5 meters away at 5 o'clock position. Not knowing how long I had before it flew off as I was pretty close, all I did was use the edge of my drivers side window as a rest. Not ideal, but the hardest part was trying to get into a shooting position. At that angle it was virtually impossible and not comfortable at all.

Why do you suggest working the eye to reduce the catch light? I am asking as I actually added light which I neglected to mention. Sorry!

Do you mean the stringy thread below the perch LLHC?

Jeff I sharpen the bird at some stage when I have isolated the bird using a layer mask. At this stage it is a work in progress but lately I sharpen with Nik Sharpen Pro 3. I think I did this twice here. When I have resized the image for web I do another sharpen with USM.

The CS was on eye/head area.

There was no mention of the detail in the blacks and whites of the bird that I somehow feel are lacking. Anything here for me?

Thanks Jeff

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Carl,

I feel the B&W are find and not a fan of over popping or saturating a nature photo(....selective color and +2 BLK & GRAY and see what you think). As you know this is subjective but since the eye (beautiful) is so controlling in the photo I would work it a bit. The CL is big and a bit distracting ..but that's me.


Yes LLHC..this can exit the eye out of the frame and needs to go.

Sharpening strategy is spot on...

[Carl Walker]

Thanks for your input Jeff. Much appreciated. Will try your suggestions.

[Diane Miller]

Agree to pick off that little thread. The blacks look very good to me, with the whites maybe a little lacking in detail. You might try Nik's Detail Extractor. It can work wonders.

I love the BG leaves as they are!

[Carl Walker]

I cloned the twig out and darkened background slightly. Also used Nik detail extractor to try it out. Sharpened a bit on bird and fish and then USM on final resized pic. Looks a bit better. Also worked the eye a bit. WDYT

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Carl, the RP looks really hammered, you may have 'extracted' some more detail, but you have lost the lovely depth of the blacks in the OP, in fact, I think you can just push them a fraction more. The blacks look thin & washed out! These birds are quite contrasty as you know, and have, as I said, a depth to the blacks and the RP has lost all that, it's just too much. In LR I would selectively look at the whites in the throat & breast to see if you can get a bit more detail/tone which it's missing at present, then use the Tonal Curve to adjust the blacks. If you then add a few Curves adjustments in PS to target key parts I think you will achieve far more and get to where the image needs to be, even the fish has more tone & depth in it's face cheek when this is applied, trust me I quickly did it and I think it makes a difference. I might also desaturate some of the leaves as they do compete with the subject, not a huge amount you can do, but every little helps I think.

TFS
Steve

[Carl Walker]

Steve I have sent you a PM

[jack williamson]

This is an awesome image, when I saw the repost I thought "this is awesome but the blacks are a little washed out now". I wish I could spend a couple of weeks with Steve so he could teach me Photoshop as I am not very good at PP.

Jack

[Clyde Hopper]

Carl ,this may seem like a stupid question ,BUT ,It was yet one more mistake of mine . When photographing out of a car window ,Do you turn off the engine ? I have no idea what the ss has to be, so that the engine vibrations no longer have an effect . I just (NOW) switch it off .

[Diane Miller]

A quick alternative to try is to put a Curves adjustment layer on top of the Detail Extractor layer and see how it looks when you bring the blacks down a little.

With a situation like this it is often better to pull the LL point of the curve straight to the right until it hits the leftmost areas of the histogram (assuming it didn't before) instead of pulling down the center, which may darken too much into the mid-tones.

But of course it's always better to go back to the RAW and do what you can there with tonalities. The newer versions of ACR/LR are quite amazing in what the sliders can pull out.

[Carl Walker]

Clyde I allways switch off the vehicle. Not only for photography but whilst viewing as well. Occasionally I have made shots with higher SS for BIF when the vehicle is running but few have paid off.
Dianne the only curves I have in PSE is a color curves adjustment. I'm not sure if this will help but I will have a look at it. I want to back to the raw image and start again. Thanks for the valued input.

[Steve Kaluski]

Carl ,this may seem like a stupid question

Hi Clyde, IMHO there is never a 'stupid' question and you/we should never be afraid to ask it. It's all part of this learning process and I bet there are truck loads of people who are thinking the same point, but are too shy to ask, so good for you! I would say, switch the engine off always, it reduces any vibration even with a bean bag, the less problems you, the better your results.

[Diane Miller]

In Color Efex 4 you can stack effects. I forgot to say, I often combine Detail Extractor with Tonal Contrast, which lets you adjust shadows, midtones and highlights separately (with some overlap, of course). It's possibly using curves behind the scenes, but maybe uses more sophisticated separation of tonal ranges similar to contrast masking.

[Carl Walker]

It has been a while as I have been pretty busy. Hope this is an improvement on my previous repost.
Thanks