A White-Throated Kingfisher (Halcyon smyrnensis) perched on a wooden pole situated in the middle of a lotus pond. Taken on February 27, 2014 in Plaeng Yao, Chachoengsao, Thailand. Taken around 5:30 PM with a very orange/red sun (as it sets here in parts of SE Asia it gets very orange/red due to haze).
At 840mm the subject was too close to fit into a single frame so I took two photos and merged them in Photoshop as a vertical panorama.
Since I am new here I am posting my lightroom settings if anyone has any feedback on them.
Minimal processing done in Lightroom 4.4
-WB Set to daylight
-Exposure increased +0.4
-Blacks decreased -12
-Sharpness amount set to 40 with masking set to 45
-Luminance noise reduction set to 12
Canon 7D
Canon 600mm L F4 IS II
Canon 1.4x Teleconverter Series III
Shot from my car using an Apex Low-profile Bean Bag and Wimberly II Gimbal
ISO 1600, f5.6, 1/640
Manual Exposure mode
Center-weighted average metering used only as a guide since Manual mode was used
Based on my previous post I have made some changes to my laptop monitor calibration that I hope will correct the issues I have been having with my images looking overly saturated to everyone but me.
I have another version which has more room on the right side of the bird but ultimately decided to go with this version.
Ron
Last edited by Ron E Racine; 03-04-2014 at 03:40 AM.
Hi Ron,
You have a beautiful subject and terrific colors.
IQ is excellent and the PP work is excellent as I cannot tell where the merge line is. Was this shot as a vertical? Where is the merge line?
I still feel the colors are a bit over saturated but I have never seen this KF in real life so will trust your version.
Compwise I would like a bit more room up top if you have it ( easy canvas extension if you don't)
Great bird,
gail
Thank you very much for the feedback Gail. It was shot as two horizontals. The merge line is about 3/4 up in the frame. I agree with you on the headroom, I am just getting started with vertical panoramas and will definitely keep this in mind.
As for the color I feel the picture cannot do this KF justice as the blue is very bright and intense. I am however still trying to get my monitor calibrated properly so what you see could indeed be overly saturated.
In hindsight, you should have turned your camera to a vertical orientation and that would have allowed you to get the whole bird in the frame and saved you the trouble of merging! But maybe you didn't have time,
Gail
Love that almost iridescent blue on the plumage. Neat head angle, and since it is looking up I agree a bit more room up there would work well. Terrific BG, and the processing is well done. Saturation looks OK here.
Excellent colors. Bg is just superb and having seen and photographed this species, I think the colors you've presented are perfect. Agree with the comp suggestions. Excellent work and looking forward to more Ron.
Saturation looks fine here too! Ideally, the HA could be be better, but if there's a story to it as to why it's looking up, then more canvas at the top is needed.
Gorgeous image, and I like the added room -- good job on that and excellent jog on the panorama! I love being able to get more pixels. I don't know how vivid the colors should be, but wonder if it would be a good comparison to reduce the reds just a little?
Some laptos just won't calibrate well, despite claims of the folks who sell the equipment and software. I think if the screen auto-adjusts its brightness that would throw things off (it does if you change brightness with a monitor after calibration) and of course viewing angle changes everything.
I had to stack the two in PS to see any difference, and there is just a slight change in the bottom of the beak. Trying color variations here would be best done in LR, with the color temp adjustments. And I'm only suggesting that they can be tried, for comparison, not that the colors are not correct as presented.
But if the bird was in any sort of shade, setting a WB to daylight will give a noticeably warm color cast. Here's a "correction" to some degree (which may not be accurate for the bird) just to show the variation in possibilities. I moved the blue and magenta sliders a little to the left, moved the Shadows lighter and the Highlights darker. An Auto WB will really kill the colors, but will make any color cast evident.
Excellent image. Very nice pose, beautiful colors,great details, BG and composition. I like the re post by Diane,where blacks are opened up and colors are perfect.