Low light shorebird (mood shot)

[Andrew Harrell]

I took this photo very, very early in the morning when there was really not enough light to properly expose the bird (anyone care to ID the specie?). While I think the photo would not work for a true technical portrait shot, I like the photo because (for me anyway) it sets a mood.

I wanted to see if any others liked or dis-liked, so of course C&C are appreciated.





Sony A77, Minolta 300mm, f4 at 1/1500, ISO 320
cropped (pretty heavy) and straightened just a tad

Thanks for your thoughts!!


AP

[Diane Miller]

Low light can give a nice mood, but it also limits tonal range. For me, this one is too limited, but others may disagree. You might be able to bring up a little more detail in the mid-darks in processing, but probably at the expense of noise, and a big crop won't be your friend there. Worth a try, though. There are some interesting textures in the water that might be brought out even more.

Since the bird is looking to the right, I would leave more room there and remove it from the left.

Would love to see what you can do with a repost!

[Andrew Harrell]

Dianne: Thanks for your comments. I tried to do what you suggested, but I don't think I pulled it off. Noisy? I'll let you tell me ....



I would like to bring out some of the warmer tones in the water, but it just seemed like everything I did lightened those tones. How would you approach that in Lightroom?

(about to break down and purchase Adobe CC combo of LR and PS) ...


AP

[Glennie Passier]

Andrew, I like what you have tried to achieve here. I can see the moodiness, and I like it. The reflection is mirror perfect. Diane has said most of what I might have been thinking about the crop, and noise. I like the repost better.

[Diane Miller]

I love the LR / PS CC combo! I held out for a long time but they have finally made some substantial improvements since CC first came out.

I could only work on the JPEG, LR adjustments shown below. Of course you can do better if you go back to the original raw file. I would to go to PS to select the water if I wanted to darken it, but there is enough noise here I didn't try to go further. Underexposure = noise. View it at 100% and decide where your comfort level is for lightening it. And it could be tricky to darken the water realistically while lightening the bird. I will usually only go as far as I can with the Shadows and Highlight sliders (balanced by the others as needed) in LRs Basic section. There are limits to what can be done well.

Also go to Lens Corrections and check Chromatic Aberration -- there is some fringing in the reflection that is probably CA, but may be some other sort of lens artifact. There is also a Defringe option there, in the Color tab.

[Diane Miller]

I lost the mood by warming it up too much -- the temp and tine can be changed to suit.

[Doug West]

Have you tried going the other way...making a silhouette instead?
That would mean working on the reflection or possibly removing it.

Then taking the water and increasing the color temp to try and make
it a little more orange/red.

Doug

[Diane Miller]

Good idea from Doug, as the noise in this one won't allow any decent lightening.

[Craig Schriever]

Love the Mood! I tried some thing a little different. In Lightroom I used the Dehaze slider in the negative about -14 and then selectively sharpened the Bird and reflection, then removed the BG noise with the selection brush. I'm sure it would look better with the RAW file.

[Diane Miller]

Craig, that's impressive!!

[Adhika Lie]

I love this repost. I do note a slight blu-ish halo around the bird, but that's probably because you worked with a compressed JPEG, Craig. This is a really good rework!