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Deadly Dinner
I have seen this behavior once before at the same location but not fast enough with the camera. Purple Swamphen with a cane toad (bufo marinus) a native of America! I have seen crows toss them on their bellies and eat their tongues. I am hoping the Swamp hen can do the same, or at least similar.
This one really surprised me. He/she came running along the rocks quickly with the toad swinging to and fro, and half flew, half walked on water to reach her sole chick. I know the toxin the toads exude is plenty to kill a large dog. I would be interested to know if anyone else has seen this behavior.
Not a great shot, but I thought some may be interested.
5D2
Sigma 150-600mm @ 309mm
Manual Esposure
1/640 sec @ f/5.6
ISO 500
Evaluative metering
Tripod
In ACR - raised exposure by 1.75 stops and lightened shadows. Green and Yellow Saturation sliders increased. "Crop" post shows crop only. Final crop done in PS.
In PSCS6 -Two curves adjustment layer; one on bird, one ob BG, vibrance layer on BG, NR on BG and burning FG rocks cropped and smart sharpened for web posting.
C&C Always welcomed and appreciated!
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Hi Glennie. I love the action in this shot. The hanging toad and the raised foot really add interest to me. Would have been amazing if you got the toads eye really sharp but I know that is just asking a lot. As with your other shot, I feel it could be a bit sharper if you stopped down more. The sport is good at 5.6, but better at f8.
Shot still seems a bit underexposed to me. Seems you are often fighting the light in these shots. Are you shooting in low light conditions and just leery of high ISO's? I shoot with the 7d2 and do not like the quality of the pics that I get when my ISO is above 800 so I know what you are up against.
I think you did very well freezing the action with a shutter speed of 1/640 but of course a faster shutter speed would have been better. Again pushing the ISO a bit would have helped. I can see some traces of motion blur around the left side of the head and bill.
As before, a lower shooting angle is better (personal preference) but not always possible.
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Cool capture! VERY cool!
We have a cousin of these birds (or maybe they're the same species -- I don't know birds). Great catch and good work on toning down the brights.
When you say raised the Exposure I'm confused -- the image showing the crop looks like a higher exposure that you brought down, which should be the best practice for tonal information. I might lower Darks on the top half of the bird.
My 5D2 has been converted to IR but as I remember I'd risk ISO 800 with it, but not much more. (Same for the 7D2.) Nik Dfine is amazing for noise reduction if needed.
You guys have it all down there -- crocodiles, snakes, spiders, jellyfish and poison toads. I'll take my chances here with mountain lions, bears and poison oak. They're bigger and easier to spot.
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Cool shot, Glennie! Very attractive. I've no problem with the darks, as the ambience is dark, and I think the rear of the bird is black anyway.
BTW, this species in not native to the US either. It was introduce in FL to control some kind of grub. An old story, told many times in US and OZ, I think.
You folk have the most interesting species. How about a brown snake next time?
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I meant make the darks darker, just a little, at the darkest end, with the Blacks slider. I often try to get more tonal range (detail) in darks by moving the Black slider left and the Shadows slider right -- that will stretch the darkest values a little. And the opposite with light tones: Higlights left and Whites right -- but just a little. There are limits to what you can do. Watch the histogram and the warnings.
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In these type of varying and rapidly changing conditions it is best to shoot manual as you do. Find the settings that will have fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action and allow enough light to be on your bird so that you are not struggling too much in post to fix exposure and stick with it. Sure you know that but it is always worth hearing again. Not too long ago we had a mega rare flycatcher (unrelated to yours at it seems you are in Australia) in New York City. It was actively feeding in a dark forest with spots of bright light shining through and I was just really struggling to nail exposure. Standing next to me was one of New York Citys most accomplished bird photographers. He asked me how I was shooting (had the camera set to AV as I was more trying to find the bird which was a first for the state and not really concentrating on my camera settings) cause he could see that I was struggling. Kept chimping and making changes. So I got the obligatory smirk and then a kind and thorough talking to about the merits of manual in rapidly changing backgrounds and situations. Choose the exposure and shutter speed that works for your bird and your action and as the background changes the exposure should still be the same on the bird was the gist of it. 
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Diane - As always! Thank you. Yes. It needs to be darker on the back. I'll give it whirl.
Jess- Thank you. Cane toads were introduced here to eat the cane beetle. They're doing terrible damage all over now. I like snakes, but not stupid enough to get too close!
Isaac - Thank you. You do understand the conditions well. I can see where manual is the only thing that's going to work here. I think I'm actually getting a pretty good understanding of it now....after about 10 years! There was an interesting thread here on the ETL a while back on the merits of manual. I have learnt from various people to try to keep the shutter speed in line with the length of your lens. I try to do this, but always, it seems, not enough light to enable the SS I would like.
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Forum Participant
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Craig - Thank you so much. I don't mind you editing. That's why I'm here! I really like what you have done with the toad!..and the whole image for that matter. I can't find the "shake reduction" sharpen filter. Thank you again for the effort you have put into this.
Diane - Thank you! I must be your most dense pupil here! "I pulled it into PS and used the Camera Raw filter" I didn't know there was such a filter. I went back to the raw file and tried the adjustments you mentioned above. The darks on the bird were very dark. I was thinking ACR was becoming easier, I am thinking more about it and trying not to fiddle too much. This is what I have to learn. Grasshopper, you "see" so much that I miss. How is your SIL enjoying Japan. My SIL went over to Japan to teach "Australian" English. It was interesting times for her.
"be sure when you open each in PS that you get a profile mismatch warning" You have talked about this before with others (lots of others) and thought I was OK. I never saw any warning, but there was a little asterik by the file name, I have now fixed that little problem.
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Nice sharpening touch, Craig. I usually neglect to sharpen a JPEG but it can give a very nice effect. If I do any sharpening on the master file I do it on a separate layer that I can turn off if I see later that I overdid it.
Glennie, I think that filter is only in CC. It's under the Filter menu > Camera Raw Filter. I would only use it very rarely, but here it was just a convenience to get the same sliders you would have in your raw conversion.
I mis-spoke about the file warning. That would be when someone opens an sRGB file, like the JPEGs here. If opened your master file, it would already be in your working space and no warning. And if your working space is sRGB you wouldn't get it.
The asterisk means the image is not in your working space. That's OK unless you will be looking at the histogram. You should have gotten a warning when you first started to open it. I see I don't have a tutorial on the basics of color management. Need to do that asap. Go to Edit > Color Settings and set your PS working space to Adobe RGB (or sRGB for the simplest lower common denominator) and check the 3 boxes about profile warnings. In ACR set the output to the same choice.
What did you do to fix the asterisk?
Jeremy's time in Japan was several years ago. He has a real job now, as a screenwriter/filmmaker.
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What did you do to fix the asterisk In ACR, under the image, the blue, underlined writing says "Adobe RGB (1998); I have gone into PS into colour settings and set the working space to Adobe RGB. I had previously selected sRGB. When I changed it to Adobe, the asterisk had disappeared. All 3 boxes about profile warnings are ticked.
I don't know what made me think of Jeremy. I bet you have been a great help to him, in his real job!
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That was the right ting to do. Watch it for a while and make sure it stays set.
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