Black Skimmer on BlueBG

[Adhika Lie]

Ok, a little bit of a break from the falcon, here are two pictures from Sunday at Bolsa Chica. There is a group of Black Skimmer in that area and I have always been fascinated by the way they fly "on ground effect" while skimming the water. They have a very long wing and that gives them a very good aspect ratio to glide, but the ground effect effectively reduces drag and thus minimizing altitude loss while they glide over the water. That long wing also gives them very good directional control as small movement on the tip can result in a significant rolling moment and thus change their direction of flight.

Having said that, this is one heck of a bird to expose properly. Very contrasty and exposing for the whites will cause the blacks to be so clogged up and exposing for the blacks will cause the whites to blow up. Out of almost 800 pics in that 3 hours, I have a few that, I think, have decent exposures and decent sharpness (did I mention they fly sooo fast that I can hardly keep up?). They are not 100% sharp on the eye, since it is almost impossible to grab focus on their small eye, but the DOF was enough to keep acceptable sharpness across the entire bird.

However, I am in a little bit of a conundrum here. The birds are pretty much shot against the water all the time and they are not great when they are so choppy like on that day. My big question is: How would you handle such situation in post-processing? Can it be made "prettier" in post-processing?

Here are the two of such examples. I'd love to hear your comments on the image as well. I hope you don't mind for the two for one. But all of my skimmer photos turn out like this and I feel like they both lack something in common. I don't know what.

280mm, f/8, 1/2500, ISO1250
LR: Exp -0.15, Highlights -60, Shadows +68, Whites +40, Blacks -24
PS: CEP Detail extractor on the bird
24MP -> 14.7MP crop.

280mm, f/8, 1/2500, ISO1250
LR: Exp +0.50, Highlights -100, Whites +19, Blacks -28
24MP -> 7.5MP crop

[Diane Miller]

Amazing catches! Great focus and detail -- processing looks excellent. Love the gold reflection on the second one!

Maybe it's competition from the texture of the water that is bothering you? Not much you can do about the water except find a low angle where it is more OOF or maybe try to find a time when it is in shadow and the bird isn't. Doesn't sound like that is an option. Your question was what to do in post -- in the first the bird is sharp and you could select it (Quick Selection would probably do it, with some hand cleanup of the mask by going to quick mask mode). Then invert and blur the BG -- might work. But you undoubtedly know that is an option, and probably a marginal one.

On the second one, a blur would probably mess up the story of the bird scooping in the water, but maybe worth a try for the education.

Looking forward to more!!

[Warren Spreng]

I think they are great Adhika! I like how you can see the wake that was left in the water from the birds bill in the second image. I think the only thing you could do to improve on a shot of these birds would to be at a very low angle catching one with his bill in the water from nearly side on so that you might have the water, the bird with the bill dragging in the water and some sky in the BG. And hopefully a wave wouldn't wash over you and the camera while you are prone on the beach trying to get that shot!

I just noticed you were only at 280 mm, they must have been coming in close to you!

[Adhika Lie]

Good idea on getting low, Warren. This is shot from a bridge at a local marsh. I have never seen others wading into the water to take pictures of the bird. That bridge itself is usually full of photographers so I assume it's not allowed for us to go into the water. Unfortunate.

I think Diane is spot on when she said competition of texture. The BG just looks way too busy. I tried field blurring the first photo, Diane, but it didn't turn out so good, I am not sure; I am tempting to just clean all the waves and stuff. But probably it's just easier to go shoot again when the condition is better (less wind) but of course the skimmer might not be there anymore. Such is life! Haha.

[Glennie Passier]

Both images look good. I know what you are thinking about the BG and agree. I have no suggestion on trying to improve the BG apart from, as you have already mentioned, waiting for a calm day.

[Jim Keener]

My favorite parts of these is the eye contact in the upper image and the parachute wings in the lower one. One of my favorite things to see in an avian photograph. TFS.