Beach Stone-Curlew, Inverloch VIC, August 2014. Thanks for looking.
Nikon D800E, Nikon 500mm f/4G ED VR plus TC-14E II (700mm), Tripod
-1/3 EV, ISO 400, 1/4000 sec at f/5.6
LR5, PS CC 2014
Removed some distracting objects from the beach, added a little canvas to bottom of frame.
I'm not sure about including the whole of the reflection. I don't think it is strong enough to balance the image. I would be inclined to crop a lot of the bottom of the image and add some space in front of the bird. Nice sharp image.
BW
Steve
I like reflections but this one could be good with just the leg reflection. It needs a significant CW rotation -- line up the eye on a vertical line with its reflection.
I'm on my iPhone again until this evening so can't comment on sharpness but I really like what I see here! Looking forward to catching up here!
The lighting is lovely and it's a very nice catch. But I'm on my laptop now and I can see that it looks oversharpened and grainy, more than I would expect from that camera and ISO. Is it a big crop? Was the original sharp? If not, you're limited in what you can do to fix it.
Thanks so much for the tips. Before I spend time on the the final cloning, eye work etc I'd be interested in your thoughts on this repost please.
Different crop (legs reflection only), CW rotation and easing back on the sharpening (just a RAW pre-sharpen in LR then a high pass in PS). I seem to have plenty of pixels to work with as the repost would print bigger than A4 @ 300dpi.
Last edited by Mark Bennett; 02-09-2015 at 11:39 PM.
I think that's a more pleasing composition. I like the pebble in the right lower corner. I find the OOF pebbles in the top left a bit distracting, i think it would look better with them cloned out.
BW
Steve
Back on my iPhone this morning but I like this composition better than the OP. The pebble doesn't bother me as it balances the bird. Will have to wait till I have a chance to get back on the laptop to compare image quality.
I was in a hurry -- now I see Mark meant the pebbles on the left. They might be reduced somewhat but a complete cleanup might look artificial. Nice catch in any case!
OK -- had a few minutes to get on the laptop. Although it's better, I still see what appear to be JPEG compression artifacts, which I assume are only in in the post here and not the master file. Maybe you're compressing the JPEG more than necessary? All that matters for a JPEG to post online is the pixel dimensions -- resolution (as in pixels per inch) isn't relevant. If you size the image for posting here (now 1200 x 1000?) and limit the file size to under 400K you should be able to have a high enough quality to see no artifacts.
You can use the Export dialog from LR directly from the full-sized PSD master file, layers and all, and specify the pixel dimensions and max file size and should get an excellent result.
Thanks for the cloning and jpeg tips. I have just got back to my computer. Here is the repost with some rocks and bill specular highlights cloned out. I used "Save for Web" with slider set such that the file size was just less than 400k.
Beach Stone-Curlew
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