African Openbill at sunset

[Douglas Bolt]

Canon 5DM2, Canon 70-200@200, 1/640s, f6.3. ISO 3200, HH. Grab shot. Nearly FF, cropped to level horizon. Scene was near the Santawani Camp on the Okavango Delta. This seems to me to be more of an African scene or travel pic than a bird photo, but please move it as needed.

[David Stephens]

Dramatic silhouette! I like the light coming through the bill and great wing position. The pink and blue sunset pastels are very attractive. I'd like less of the scraggly tree in the foreground and would even consider cloning it entirely out if I were going to print this. I think that I see a little green in the tree that I'd prefer to render black, if I were to leave it in. Still, it's powerful as is.

[Douglas Bolt]

Dave,

Thanks for you suggestions. I had considered trying to do something with the trees, especially the one in front of the bird. I didn't do much at all to the image as shown. Making the green a dark gray would help. I'm not sure I am capable of totally removing the trees. I'm afraid the line between orange and blue would probably look artificial with my skills in PS. Worth a try, however.

[dankearl]

I like the silhouette. I would like it better with no trees at all.

[Douglas Bolt]

I tried to remove some of the trees, but not all that successfully, IMO.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Doug - I like the silhouette and the pastel colors of the sky but I agree that it would be better without the oof trees. Why not go to a panoramic of just the bird against the sky from your rp?

TFS,
Rachel

[Douglas Bolt]

Rachel,

Excellent idea. I like it better than the RP, but I think I'll start over and see if I can do a better job cloning out the trees. However, I'm sure I'm going to prefer a pano (9x16 looks good) without any trees.

[David Stephens]

I like the way this is headed.

[Douglas Bolt]

Here's my re-re-post. I like it better than either of the above posts, but I am not satisfied with some of the PS tracks. Maybe its because I've stared at the image too long, but I think I can still tell that something was removed.

Thanks for the suggestions. The 16x9 pano seems better to me than the usual 3x2.

[Rachel Hollander]

Doug - here's an alternative crop that avoids your issue. It becomes a simple yet effective image.

Rachel

[Douglas Bolt]

Sure does! Thanks.

[Andrew McLachlan]

The last two reposts work very nicely for this one Douglas. I am preferring the one in Pane #9 the best. Had the trees in the original post been in sharp focus and more silhouetted than they were it may have worked better, but when the image is brought down to the simple elements of sunset sky and bird it really shines. Nice capture!

[Chris Ober]

I think it would work equally well in the Avian as here. The cropped repost is a lovely extraction. Needs the trees sharp to be more effective as a whole I think.

[David Stephens]

I too prefer panel 9, perhaps due to its inclusion of the cloud layer.

[Douglas Bolt]

Thanks for your help.

I made a slight mod of #9 that currently suits me best. The only change was to crop about a 1/4th off of the lower portion of the blue cloud. It seemed to be better balanced that way. I also like Rachel's suggestion, but it seemed to me to need some more space below the bird. Extending canvas and filling with the orange sky I also worked well. However, I started to feel that I may have Photoshoped it a bit too far the original image. I'm going to print the #9 mod 16" high on Epson Hot Press Bright.