Two Slender-billed Vultures Struggle

[jeff schwilk]

Hello,

This is my first post. This photo was taken in late March at a vulture restaurant at Western Siem Pang in NE Cambodia. I have been trying to edit it for the last couple of days and wanted to get any pointers as to what I might do to improve it. A white-rumped vulture was cloned out from the background. Unfortunately, most of the action was midday so the light was not the best.

Canon 1D IV
500mm F4
ISO 800
1/1250
f 8.0

[Daniel Cadieux]

Hi Jeff, welcome to BPN!!

Despite being photographed midday the light looks OK here, looks like the light may have been diffused a bit. Well exposed, and sharp. Good action and I like the bit of blood dripping from the bill. Tough crop, I suppose it was difficult to isolate a bird or two within that action. Only thing is that I can tell where you cloned out the other vulture as that area is smoothed out and lacking texture like the rest of the BG - it can be tricky to clone out big objects like that without leaving a trace...

P.S. Fixed the link to your image for you. You need to copy / paste the image's URL into the dialogue box once you click on the "Insert image" icon.

Hope to see more from you, and please do not be afraid to offer critique on others' images as it helps foster a sense of community and is a great learning tool to hone your photography and processing skills.

[jeff schwilk]

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for the edit and feedback. I attempted to blur out the cloned area to give it more texture but it still looks very cloned to me. Perhaps I will try placing the birds on another background? I look forward to participating in this forum.

Thanks,

Jeff Schwilk
orniphoto.com

[Randy Stout]

Jeff:

Welcome to BPN! Excellent input from Daniel as usual. Crowded scenes are always a challenge to crop. If I have a real puzzler, I will post a second from in the same thread, showing the original uncropped image, and sometimes someone else will see an option that I missed. Feel free to add the original here if you would like.

Cheers

Randy

[jeff schwilk]

http://harpagornis.smugmug.com/Western-Siem-Pang-Vultures-in/i-RxpgDhN

Hi Randy,

Thanks for the feedback. Here is the original unedited shot. Hopefully I correctly posted the image this time...

I usually don't like to crop quite so tight but wanted to get a nice closeup of the blood/drama. I am now thinking that I will keep all of both birds and select and move them to another background. I have another 2000 or so of these vultures that I am currently going through and will post a few of the better ones.

Cheers,

Jeff Schwilk
orniphoto.com

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Welcome at BPN, Jeff (I'm still relatively new around here as well)!

I think you've done well with the non-ideal light situation here. Just wondering why the tight crop on the left and bottom (both birds chopped in half) - too close to fit everything into the 500mm frame? Pity as I'm quite curious to know what the full action scene looked like.

[jeff schwilk]

http://harpagornis.smugmug.com/Western-Siem-Pang-Vultures-in/i-RxpgDhN

Hi Randy and Tobie,

I tried to post this photo yesterday in response to Randy's comments but for some reason the message and photo did not go through.

The crop is much tighter than I normally like to do but I thought in order to really show the drama/blood drip that this might work. I had thought that it would be easier to crop out the birds in the background than to clone them out. I am now going to select out both birds and move them to another cleaner background and see how that works.