I took a break from photography for a while, but started shooting again in April. I still feel a bit "rusty", especially with PP, so please offer all suggestions you care to. That's what I'm here for. :) This was taken in a photo blind in front of a watering hole at Laguna Seca ranch near Edinburg, TX, at around 7:00 pm with a Nikon D7000, 500mm f/4-P @ 1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 400. At this time of year, the light is still pretty bright. I got a few in softer light, but none bathing. Processed for basics in LR, with sharpening zeroed out, then to CS6 for cloning a bit of dead, brown grass pieces here and there, a 10% white neutralizer in Nik Color Effects Pro to reduce the strong yellow cast on the background, adjusted curves a bit, then resized for web. I feel it still looks "hot", but not sure if there is anything else to be done, because it was HOT! ;) Again, any and all comments and suggestions are more than welcome. :)
Last edited by Jeannean Ryman; 08-17-2014 at 09:00 AM.
Great colors, good sharpness on the head and nice water droplets all around.
I might have gone up with the ISO to 800 and then set the shutter speed to 1/1600 s
to "freeze" the action more and set the f stop to 7.1 to get more DOF.
What a fantastic frame! The color of the bird and the color in the reflection are a big eye catcher. The detail in the head and the perfect water splash with good sized water drops that are distributed throughout the frame looks awesome. Very nice.
Come join me for a Custom Raptor Workshop starting this November 2019- January 2020.
P.M. me to inquire on dates, pricing and availabilities. Thank You. www.davidsalemphotography.com
Welcome back! Always good to have a little more estrogen on the Avian forum!!
I love the rainbow of colors in this image.
I agree with you that the image is still a bit hot but feel your PP is very well done. Did you try reducing the white balance a little bit. Sometimes that helps, sometimes not.
I would have increased your ISO to get a faster SS or DOF.
Another option would be to take some of the reflection off the bottom by cropping up. This reduces some of the "color blast" and fools the eye into thinking the colors are less hot. A quick browser scroll will show you what I mean.
Love all the water droplets and the perfect HA,
Gail
Thank you Karl, David, and Gail. I appreciate the comments and will raise the ISO next time. This old manual lens only has apertures of f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, and f/22, so I usually shoot at 5.6, but will experiment with f/8. Gail, I tried some just off the bottom, but ended up keeping the same ratio when cropping some off the bottom. I hope it's not too tight now. I also readjusted the white balance and reduced the luminance in the orange, red, and yellow channels. It seems to have cooled it off a bit. Does it look better or not? I really struggle with PP, so appreciate and welcome your thoughts and suggestions. Redo:
I would pass out if I ever saw one of these beautiful birds!! So -- not really knowing what they look like -- I wonder if it's just a little over-saturated? Tonal (contrast) adjustments can increase saturation when we're not looking.
I do like the RP for the crop but don't see a difference in the colors.
Thanks Diane. Maybe I'm trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. At around 95+ degrees at 7pm, it may be just the nature of the light. Sure makes for a short window of shooting time here in the summer. As for the saturation, I actually decreased it a bit. They look like melted crayons when they're wet. :)
It's definitely not a sow's ear! I'm just thinking that maybe the contrast and/or saturation is a bit high. I often have to come back to an image several days later and compare it to others to see small issues. Looking at a group in a color-managed image viewer such a Bridge or LR is a good way. And our monitors are all somewhat different, too. Reducing contrast or saturation can make an image look dull at first. It's hard to get the right perspective -- takes experience. I have the same problem with Western Bluebirds -- the males can look fluorescent.
You have posted the imaeg correctly in sRGB, with the profile tagged, so that's not an issue. But the brightness of the light or time of day (or the heat) don't really affect saturation directly. I doubt it's the nature of the light.
I will often go to the HSL panel in LR and look at color tweaks.
Also, I don't zero out sharpening. The small default amount of 25 is really just enough to compensate for the antialiasing filter on our cameras. LR/ACR is working in LAB mode and the sharpening is only on the L (lightness) channel, and at low amounts it won't leave artifacts the way over-sharpening in PS will. (But it can be overdone.)
Diane, you were absolutely correct on the saturation being too high. I did a clipping mask on a hue/saturation layer and had to bring it down quite a bit. Thank you so much for the tips!
Welcome back Jeannean, What a nice image, I to would love to be able to capture birds with this much color. Excellent water droplets, and nice sharpness, The colors do look saturated but , I don't see this bird enough to say it is over saturated. anyway a beautiful image.
Welcome back Jeannean, What a nice image, I to would love to be able to capture birds with this much color. Excellent water droplets, and nice sharpness, The colors do look saturated but , I don't see this bird enough to say it is over saturated. anyway a beautiful image.
Thank you Robert. It's nice to "see" you. Diane was spot on about the saturation. It's a very bright, primary colored bird, but the colors aren't quite *that* saturated. It's always good to have extra eyes to check things for you.
Male Painted Bunting bathing
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Robert Kimbrell
