After days of heavy rain (a month's worth in a couple of days...terrible bush fires and now some flooding in Brisbane) I was able to get out yesterday amidst some blue sky and mosquitoes, and head to a local spot. Took around 30 shots of this Kingfisher with various head angles, but settled on this one to post.
Edited in ACR and PS, with a bit of final work in ZSE. Cheers.
7Dii, 100-400@400mm, 1/400th sec, f5.6, iso400, AV mode HH.
Hi Paul, I havent seen this species of Kingfisher before, and he looks really cool with his blue/green feather details. Yes to a good HA. The light looks a tad harsh in this, as parts of the perch are very over exposed. This also shows the light angle was not in your favour either.
Points mentioned by Stu are valid, but I think if you revisited this then you can pull more detail out. 2 mins with a highlight luminosity mask brings the BG and the perch back to nice levels, then a couple of curve adjustment targeting different parts of the bird each time help boost colours, then finally lightening the eye a little.
I agree the HA is good, nice natural setting, hope the mozzies left you reasonably alone!
Thank all.
Mike: I appreciate you taking the time to edit...the re-post looks good, although I'm on the fence with the yellow sections in the BG. The bird, however, looks much better. I actually re-dited it myself after posting, as it did look a little harsh, and I wanted to tone down the perch and other highlight areas. I did have to remove some distractions in the foreground, (LHS oof dark branch) and I'm happy with how that turned out. Cheers.
Gail: Thank you...still aiming to get more shots of the Azure KF too. Time and patience!
Last edited by Paul Burdett; 02-08-2020 at 05:05 PM.
You did very well considering the lighting conditions. Color looks good, but I think a faster SS (i.e. 1/800 at ISO 800) would ave helped crisp-up some of the details
on the bird. It's also tough when the bird is facing into - as opposed to away from - perch, but still a fine effort with what I imagine is a skittish subject.
Thank you Dorian. Actually the KF was in somewhat of a shade and an hour before sunset, but the lighting is still quite harsh here in Brisbane at this time. Cheers.