Kurrichane Thrush portrait

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Caught this guy turning over every leaf in search of moving morsels. It was quite dark under the shrubs so I had to push the exposure settings a bit. Unfortunately a grass blade running accross the lower RH corner due to snapping it in its natural habitat but that was the cleanest shot of them all.

Highlights lowered and a tad of NR applied in LR. Cropped to about 60% of original.

D600
AF-S VR Zoom-NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED + TC14E II @ 280mm

f/4 | 1/250s | ISO 1600 | handheld

All C & C's welcomed

[Diane Miller]

Beautiful bird with great sharpness. Nice to see one on the ground, and you found a pleasing setting. There is a lot of magenta in the BG which is interesting but doesn't feel realistic. If you try to change the color balance globally you will affect other colors, which look good to me, although I don't know the bird. I would try some Selective Color or Hue-sat work on magentas and maybe blues, which shouldn't affect the bird that much.

The two bright OF areas UL are distracting, as it the small branch UR. Easy fixes.

You could do more work on cloning out the grass blades -- just come in from both sides with some spotting, rather than long strokes, to break up the pattern,

[David Kenny]

Looks like you were laying in the dirt on this one. Nice and sharp. Good feather detail. I like shots like this that show the bird in its environment.

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Thanks for the suggestions Diane! Funny how one sometimes only sees obvious things after someone else has pointed them out! Color corrections done with a selective Color Balance LM in PS, followed by Content Aware fills. Not perfect, but stacks better (I believe!).

David the bird was against a steep bank and I was on my haunches, bringing me to its level. Good observation!

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

I felt that too much magentas remained in my RP so I've removed it some more in LR.

[Diane Miller]

I think this is much better -- good job! Learning to see colors is a process. And the huge range of monitors and browsers out there can come up with many "interpretations" of colors and tonalities, but I'd say yours is good, from the RP.

[Jim Keener]

I hadn't seen the magenta either, Tobie. I'm glad Diane pointed it out. Just another example of why it's good to review the work of others. Plus I get to see such a beautiful bird captured so well. Thanks for posting it, Tobie.