Anhinga & new toy

[Colin Driscoll]

The first shot with my new toy Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS II USM.
5D3 f5.6 1/640 iso 100 slight crop no extra sharpening.

[David Salem]

Congrats on the new lens. Looks like it's working well. Nice looking frame of this guy with a cool sunning pose. The HA looks good and I like the feather details in the darks. I might add a bit of space on the top but otherwise a pretty solid frame.

[Arthur Morris]

Sharp with a neat pose. Is this a crop? The white slash behind the bill looks toasted...

a

[Colin Driscoll]

Sharp with a neat pose. Is this a crop? The white slash behind the bill looks toasted...

a

Artie, 60% of the original image. That overblown white slash is a result of careless PP on my part, will watch that in future. Good detail in the raw image and no blinkies there.

Thanks for the comments Artie and David.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Colin, What do you use to convert your RAW files?

If you have some room on the top, best to start again and crop wider.

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[Colin Driscoll]

Artie, I use DPP4 to start with and finish in Photoshop CC. By no means skilled at either, but do have yours and Ari's DPP guide. Here I have looked after that white slash and given more room at the top.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Colin. If possible and if you so choose, you can send me the RAW file via a large file transfer service to this e-mail address: samandmayasgrandpa@att.net

a

[Daniel Cadieux]

I love the pose and the perch. The wider crop works better - I'd like to see more below too but I suspect there may be distractions hidden lower. The contrast is rather strong IMO. Sharp, and perfect head angle for the pose. Congrats on the new lens!

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Colin. I converted the RAW in DPP 4 at about -.17 for Brightness as the WHITEs had some RBG values as high as 254... I try to create my RAW files with the RGB values for the WHITEs in the mid-230s, certainly no higher than the low 240s... Shadows + 3 or 4, Highlights -2.

My bigger issue is why everyone wants to crop so tightly and destroy the image design...

LMK what you think, if you have any questions, and if you want me to shoot you the optimized version.

later and love, artie

ps: I went with NIK 50/50. Should have used 25/25 as it looks a bit crunchy but I most wanted you to see the WHITEs and the crop.

[Colin Driscoll]

Excellent Artie, most educational. I often have a quandary around the crop between showing as much detail about the bird and including more of the context. Yours is the better choice though. For now I will see if I can reproduce your result in DPP. Haven't used NIK but will check it out, I use Focus Magic but not on this one as I wanted to show it straight out of the lens.