Theme - Flamingos in Flight

[William Dickson]

Canon 1DX
f/4 500mm with 1.4
f/8
1/1250
ISO 1600

I captured these birds on my recent trip to Portugal during late evening light. I tried to get closer to them, as they were in the water, but as soon as they spotted me, all flew off. They are not very fast fliers and I think I got away with the shutter speed I used.

Will

[William Dickson]

I processed this image again, as I saw quite a bit of posterization on the BG, after I converted to jpeg and posted.

Will

[Glenn Pure]

I'd love to have a good session photographing flamingos one day, so I'm envious Will. And I hadn't realised you could see them in Portugal! The reposted shot looks much better to me. I hadn't really noticed much posterisation in the sky but the tones on the birds are much better in the repost. Only issue with the repost is that the dark wing on the second bird is now much closer in tone to the background and is getting a bit lost. More generally, the dark background wasn't ideal in my view due to the difficulty with those dark wings in the rear two birds merging with the background. You have done well to get a nice sharp shot at that shutter speed. On your camera, I'm sure you could have doubled the ISO and gone to a much faster SS for a bit of added security without losing any significant IQ. Wing positions are good and framing looks fine to me. Great fit to the theme also. Thanks for sharing.

[William Dickson]

Thanks for that Glenn. On the original post I used some DE and sharpening on the birds. On the repost I never used DE, only sharpening. Do you think the birds with DE look better.


Will

[Glenn Pure]

Hi Will. I don't know what DE is but the birds in the second post look better to me. Hope that helps.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Will, great flight shots of these guys and also nailed against a foliage BG. They are quite elegant flyers, and I like the two with the raised wings. Well exposed on these guys too. You say they were in the water, hope you got some take off shots.

These are the same as our Greater Flamingo's here in SA, and wondered if they were called the same in Portugal. I will be in Cape Town over December and there are quite a few locations with Flamingo's.

[William Dickson]

Thanks Stu, much appreciated mate.

[William Dickson]

Hi Will. I don't know what DE is but the birds in the second post look better to me. Hope that helps.

DE is Detail Extractor Glenn, its part of the Nik Plugins for PS.

Will