Red-billed Queleas

[Glenn Pure]

A last go from me at the monthly theme. This one may divide opinions and I have been sitting on it for a while wondering if I'd bother posting. Here it is anyway. Why did I go with it? Well, I like the gradation from the straight silhouettes against the sky to the ghostly translucence of the light coming through masses of wings in the lower part of the frame. It hints at something exciting going on (which it was to see such masses of birds wheeling in the fading light). Maybe there isn't enough to make a compelling image? Either way, I'd appreciate your views. This is about two-thirds of the frame area. Taken at a lodge waterhole in Etosha National Park, Namibia last May. I have posted another shot from this session some time ago but I processed so the birds in the shadowed areas were more clearly visible and I didn't have any sky in the earlier post.

As always, thank you for looking and for any comments you are kind enough to share.

Technical: Canon 80D with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM Mk II at 400mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/320 sec, f7.1, ISO 1250. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser @ 50, sharpness = 2.5, crop, lighting adjustments, reduced luminance NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements with Neat Image NR plugin. Global NR applied at moderate level. Whole image sharpened in PSE (Sharpness tool, remove Gaussian Blur) after final size reduction.

[Daniel Cadieux]

OK, now this is different! I was not sure what to expect from the thumbnail, but what a nice surprise. Tons of potential here, and my first thought (after "cool image!") was that i wished that the highlights on the dark area were stronger. I took the liberty to tweak your image a bit, including lifting the highlights and cleaning up the top and left edges. Working on the raw file would of course be better. Congrats on something out of the ordinary!

[John Mack]

I like this. The backlighting through the wings is great. Maybe if you shot this a few minutes earlier the wings would really glow.

[Isaac Grant]

This is excellent Glenn. Way out of the box but an interesting and beautiful photo. I like what Daniel did with it for sure as it just accentuates the birds a bit more. Nice one!

[Glenn Pure]

Thank you Daniel, John and Isaac. I think what you've done is more in line with what I was originally thinking Daniel, but I didn't get there. So thanks for your effort on that. I will see if I can improve on your effort and repost if I can, but I don't think I'll change the RAW processing as I took that as far as I could. The adjustments needed are localised so need to be done after the global adjustments in DPP.

[William Dickson]

So different and nice Glenn. I can see this printed on large canvas, and looking real good. Dan's repost does look better. Well done.

Will

[Glenn Pure]

Thanks for the additional comments, Will. I have had another go at the TIFF, changing the tone curve and black point. Close to Dan's version but a little more subtle. I'd be happy with either Dan's version or mine though.