Black Crow, White Beach, piece of cake, right?!?

[Warren Spreng]

I have always wanted to try and catch a shot of this common, somewhat nuisance bird just to see what can be done with it. So where do I get my chance? Yep, against a white sand beach in Fort Myers, FL! I believe this is a Fish Crow and it had been eating a dead fish on the beach (which I didn't want to get in the picture!). Luckily another crow showed up and he started displaying and moved away from his meal. I worked on the crow in a separate layer to bring out as much detail as I thought possible before introducing artifacts. The beach is slanted that much, I was down as low as I could go without laying on the ground to keep away from possible fire ants! This image was not cropped. Canon 7D Mark II, Tamron 150-600mm, 483mm, HH, ISO 400, 1/640, f/10. Early morning light, clear skies.

[Andrew Harrell]

Warren: I know what you mean about trying to get pictures of crows (and for me grackles too) that look decent. I have lots of problems with getting the eye to show, get some feather definition, etc.

For this photo, I would have liked to have a little more space on the RHS. But I know how that can sometimes be an issue with other un-attractive stuff that you would end up cropping or masking out anyway.

The sun looks to be coming in at a bit of an angle vs. directly over you shoulder, again not ideal but you do what you can with what you are presented.

Maybe clone out that odd orange-brown piece of shell right at the tip of the tail?

A pretty good job done here with such high contrasts between the sand and the bird!!


AP

[Warren Spreng]

Warren: I know what you mean about trying to get pictures of crows (and for me grackles too) that look decent. I have lots of problems with getting the eye to show, get some feather definition, etc.

For this photo, I would have liked to have a little more space on the RHS. But I know how that can sometimes be an issue with other un-attractive stuff that you would end up cropping or masking out anyway.

The sun looks to be coming in at a bit of an angle vs. directly over you shoulder, again not ideal but you do what you can with what you are presented.

Maybe clone out that odd orange-brown piece of shell right at the tip of the tail?

A pretty good job done here with such high contrasts between the sand and the bird!!


AP

Thanks Andrew, I noticed that sun angle as well, maybe a bit too early in the morning. Good catch on that shell, I'll plan to remove that one.

[Adhika Lie]

Hi Warren!

I don't like working with this bird. They are so difficult to make pretty and I think you did a very good job here by showing the details on the feather. I am not bothered by the shadows but I am bothered by the horizon, maybe because I spend most of my time shooting landscapes. For some reasons, the slanted "horizon" in the background, if you will, is creating a second diagonal (the first one being the bird) that competes with each other. I would suggest cloning out the grey triangular upper left corner of the photograph.

[Warren Spreng]

Hi Warren!

I don't like working with this bird. They are so difficult to make pretty and I think you did a very good job here by showing the details on the feather. I am not bothered by the shadows but I am bothered by the horizon, maybe because I spend most of my time shooting landscapes. For some reasons, the slanted "horizon" in the background, if you will, is creating a second diagonal (the first one being the bird) that competes with each other. I would suggest cloning out the grey triangular upper left corner of the photograph.

Thanks for the suggestion Adhika, that is the edge of the water, and I think cloning that out helps. Here is an RP with both suggestions and I also worked on the area around the eye to bring a little more definition to it.

[Adhika Lie]

This is awesome! I really like it. To be super nitpicky, try cloning out the small dots on the newly cloned out area. There is this repeating three specular highlights that kinda make it a little suspicious of cloning action. Thanks for sharing this, Warren!

[Warren Spreng]

This is awesome! I really like it. To be super nitpicky, try cloning out the small dots on the newly cloned out area. There is this repeating three specular highlights that kinda make it a little suspicious of cloning action. Thanks for sharing this, Warren!

Thanks for catching that! I'll take care of that in the morning!

[Diane Miller]

Nice work on a difficult subject! I love the leeway we have on tonal correction. Very nice to see the eye so clearly!

[Glennie Passier]

Warren, great handling of a difficult subject. I like your repost without the orange bit and the corrected BG and know you will do the little circles. For my taste, I think you may have gone a bit much on the eye. Why is this image so much smaller than your OP? I perhaps, would like to see a bit more canvas on the RHS. I don't know if I would leave the little bit of wood in the frame either. Is that fishing line with hook?

[Warren Spreng]

Thanks Diane and Glennie! Glennie, I don't know what I did to make the image smaller, I must have saved it below the 1200 X 800 size requirement! Here is another RP with the circles gone, I left the rest alone as I'm happy with the rest of it now. Thanks for all of the comments! I think I'll move on to more colorful subjects!! :)

[Glennie Passier]

Beautiful work Warren. Looking forward to some more soon!

[Warren Spreng]

Thanks Glennie, I have quite a few more from my trip that I am working on now including some cute Burrowing Owls.

[Diane Miller]

Looking forward to seeing the cute little owls, and anything else you have from the trip!