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Thread: Hey! That Tickles!

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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    Default Hey! That Tickles!

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    Last Sunday we came across several juvenile Solitary Sandpipers foraging in a small retention basin. They generally foraged separately, but when they edged closer to one another, they would suddenly burst into flight and engage in what I assume was sibling horseplay. The action happened quickly, so I missed a few. Here's one of a few frames I captured.

    D500, 500f4 + 1.4 TC, ISO 1600, 1/2500s @ f/8 manual.

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    What great timing, Bill - just at the point of contact with still some sense of action in the open claws and it creates a very dynamic picture.

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    BPN Member William Dickson's Avatar
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    Brilliant timing Bill. Great flight pose on both birds. Love the details you captured. Really nice image.

    Will

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    Hard to find anything I don't like about this shot, Bill. A great interaction captured with perfect timing (what's the frame rate on your D500?). Birds, colour, tone, IQ, background all great. I like the fanned tails too - but I'm not sure the upper bird was laughing here!

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    Super Moderator arash_hazeghi's Avatar
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    This action is great Bill, very tough shot to capture too, it does look like to was a very large crop though. I like the green

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    Lifetime Member gail bisson's Avatar
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    Great action captured!
    And it all happened against a nice clean BG.
    Love the fact that both heads are well seen and the way the top birds feet can be seen.
    Great wing spread and tail fan on the bottom bird.
    Light was a bit bright but that is easily forgiven because of the action portrayed.
    Gail

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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    Thank you all. Glenn, the frame rate on the D500 at the CH setting is 10 fps, which comes in handy in situations like this. Arash, this was a relatively large crop; as presented it is 61% of full width. I probably could have crept in further, as the birds didn't seem to mind our presence, but that would have made it that much more difficult to keep the birds in the frame when they burst into the air.

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    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    I like this one much better than the next one. The dorsal view of the closer bird is downright phenomenal. Especially that tail. It is sharper than the next one that you posted. Like Arash, I am curious as to the crop. Please post a JPEG that represents the original NEF.

    with love, artie
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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    Thanks Artie. Here's the original, straight-out-of-the-camera, Full Frame. I forgot to mention that I rotated the original and moved the birds down in the frame before cropping, to get a better BG. This is a case where I almost lost them out of the frame when they burst into flight, as I did in a few other frames.

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    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    Thanks Bill. You made soup from a stone as the ORIG is not very sharp (probably for good reason: it seems that the AF point was nowhere near the subject) and also because the crop was a relatively huge one. How did you select the birds so that you could move them down? Again, your post processing was amazingly successful.

    with love, artie
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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    Thanks again Artie. Normally I wouldn't have done this much intervention, but I thought the action in these shots was worth some extra effort. The birds put on quite a show. Actually, if you can believe Nikon's View NX-i, the AF point on this image was right on the mantle of the lower bird. As I always do, I started by doing a very careful selection of the subject - in this case both birds - using a combination of the Magic Wand tool (tolerance of 10 or 15, then down to 5 for critical areas) and the Quick Selection tool with a small brush. I refined the edge, in this case feathering to 0.7 px and reducing the selection by 3%, and then save the selection. I duplicated the image. In the first copy I put the bird selection on a layer. In the second copy I used Content-Aware Fill to eliminate the bird, and then dragged the layer of the bird from the first copy onto the emptied second one. Hope that makes sense.

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    Phenomenal capture, and even more impressive post work, Bill. Remarkably fine results for such a large crop. Well done.

    Geoffrey




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    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Dix View Post
    Thanks again Artie. Normally I wouldn't have done this much intervention, but I thought the action in these shots was worth some extra effort. The birds put on quite a show. Actually, if you can believe Nikon's View NX-i, the AF point on this image was right on the mantle of the lower bird. As I always do, I started by doing a very careful selection of the subject - in this case both birds - using a combination of the Magic Wand tool (tolerance of 10 or 15, then down to 5 for critical areas) and the Quick Selection tool with a small brush. I refined the edge, in this case feathering to 0.7 px and reducing the selection by 3%, and then save the selection. I duplicated the image. In the first copy I put the bird selection on a layer. In the second copy I used Content-Aware Fill to eliminate the bird, and then dragged the layer of the bird from the first copy onto the emptied second one. Hope that makes sense.
    Thanks for posting the original and for sharing your selection techniques. As I said previously, you did a fabulous job in post. Despite the fact that Nikon AF magic aside, the original was not at all sharp, at least to my eye.

    with love, artie

    ps: I may be using too much feathering, about 3 pixels ... I will experiment. So thanks again.
    BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.

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    Super Moderator arash_hazeghi's Avatar
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    I think the original explains why it looks like a large crop, still you did a good job in processing. hopefully next time you can get both larger, sharper and in the center of the frame!
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