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Marabou Stork (immature)
Not the prettiest bird on the planet. The downy fluff on the head and neck indicates an immature bird. Photographed near Namutoni in Etosha National Park, Namibia in late afternoon light. Lighting adjustments on bird to lift darker parts and bring out detail in lighter parts.
Technical: Canon 80D with EF 100-400 MkII at 400mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/400 sec, f7.1, ISO 800. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser @ 50, sharpness = 3, crop, lighting adjustments, default NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements with Neat Image NR plugin. Very light NR applied to bird and stronger NR to background. Sharpened in PSE (Sharpness tool @ 0.5 pixels, 50%) after final size reduction.
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Lifetime Member
Stunning light helps make this bird slightly less attractive !
I like the walking pose a lot, not sure if maybe paling with the reds might be worth a revisit, they do seem a little oversaturated to my eye. Possibly a curves adjustment in the red channel or adding a bit of cyan to the reds in selective collar might help.
Then again, this might be exactly how it looked at the time - I've seen some pretty funky tones from Etosha in the past!
Mike
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Morning and evening light can be very colorful for sure, so it might be the real color tone of the moment. I like the feeling and the walking pose, the eye contact with the little head turn and the calm water with the small waves. TFS.
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Lifetime Member
I like the HA, the uplifted foot and that long " ?crop" in front of the neck . Great details on the crop and love the fur collar.
I am not sure about the color tones in this image. They seem a bit wonky ( too much cyan in the water ) to my eye but you were there and I trust your eye.
I see a couple of dust spots (or water spots) just behind middle of back and another spot in front of the leg that I would evict-easy "housekeeping" fix .
I also think the comp is not quite right. I tried adding more and then less canvas in front of bird but neither felt right. Tricky image to get right. Could you go vertical?
Despite my long ramblings I do like the image!
Gail
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BPN Member
Oh I would love light like this, especially in the late afternoon, where I think, next to sunset, gives so much light to work with. Lovely pose, detail and HA on the bird, with a BG which shows it well.
Will
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A very handsome shot of a very unhandsome bird. Ditto others comments on the color. It seems overly red, but late afternoon light can certainly do interesting things, and you were there (besides which, I've never seen this bird). I'm ok with the comp as is, although you may not have left quite enough space for the virtual leg/foot.
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Super Moderator
I can just imagine the sun about to dip below the horizon when you took this image. Perfect head angle. Ideally I would have liked some separation between the upper legs, but at least the raised foot adds some interest. I love the "Darth Maul" pattern on the head!
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Thank you all for viewing and commenting. I wasn't entirely sure aboutthis when I posted but was stuck with where to go. So your comments have been very helpful. I have revisited the image...
Crop changed slightly mainly to move it down a touch (nothing left at the bottom of the original frame now)
Overall the image looked a bit dirty too me so I have dealt with that using multiple adjustments that are too detailed to record here but included selectively lifting highlight, shadows and midtone contrast (assuming I can even remember everything I did).
Toned the red down although this is probably close to how it did actually look. Removing some of that cast has helped lift the bird, I think.
Hope you like this version a little better.
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