Killdeer Fully Exposed

[Brian Sump]

Pardon the pun... but yeah, full frontal here.

Yesterday am was the first day at my new honey hole. This one came into my spot and filled the frame nicely on the D850.

It's not perfect but I was pleased to get it.

D850
600mm + 1.4x
HH
ISO 2000
1/2500
f6.3

Post in LR and PS. Did a bit of TK mids and highs as this one came out light due to reflection. Cleaned up tiny bit of spots on the water. Minor crop for appeal.

[arash_hazeghi]

the light was certainly sweet, a few points: the head whites look flat with no details (RGB is reading 250+ which means blown), have you calibrated and profiled the new monitor yet? remember to also embed profile when saving . The main issue with this kind of incoming pose is lack of eye contact/visibility. For raptors and owls it works but for shore birds or any bird with eyes on the sides a slight angle towards the viewer is preferable.

keep up the good work

[Brian Sump]

the light was certainly sweet, a few points: the head whites look flat with no details (RGB is reading 250+ which means blown), have you calibrated and profiled the new monitor yet? remember to also embed profile when saving . The main issue with this kind of incoming pose is lack of eye contact/visibility. For raptors and owls it works but for shore birds or any bird with eyes on the sides a slight angle towards the viewer is preferable.

keep up the good work

Thanks Ari.

Yes, it came calibrated but I ran it through another calibration upon opening. Profiled meaning setting the color profile? Its set for Adobe.

The whites on the head are a touch hot. Could not get anymore details from it so I left the whites so as not to turn gray trying to lower too much. That is one of the imperfections for sure.

I embed color in every shot, maybe I forgot this one.

Eye/head position noted

[Arthur Morris]

Spectacular pose. You are invited to send me the NEF file via large file sender:)

a

[dankearl]

If the next frame has a head turn that would be what I would post.
The head on shot from this species just does not work for me.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I agree about the whites but I'm perplexed by the straight-head "issue" as this looks amazing to me. Quite subjective though. I suppose you could lighten up the red eye-rings a touch more, especially the eye to our left. Super image overall.

[Brian Sump]

I agree about the whites but I'm perplexed by the straight-head "issue" as this looks amazing to me. Quite subjective though. I suppose you could lighten up the red eye-rings a touch more, especially the eye to our left. Super image overall.

I liked it too Then again Im biased

Thank you much Daniel!

[John Mack]

Looks great to me. Love the head on pose. I could see a touch more room all around the bird. But this is still nice.

[Bill Dix]

Love the incoming flight pose with outstretched wings, but I think Arash makes a good point about eye contact with head-on shorebirds. Tough bird to capture in flight, and this head-on capture is quite nice in other respects.

[Paul Burdett]

It's interesting to read the comments. I agree regarding the blown out highlight on the head, but apart from that I love this image. As this species is not found here it's great to see a new bird.

[Arthur Morris]

Hey Brian, Thanks for sending the RAW file. First off, the WHITEs are blown pretty badly as shown by the red highlight warnings in the RawDigger screen capture here. Note in the Over/Under box that there are 588 overexposed RED pixels (not too bad considering that that is 588 out of 47.5 million pixels. On the other hand, 12,000 overexposed GREEN pixels are problematic ...


But the image was too good to give up on ... See more in the next pane.

I am doing a RawDigger Flower exposure video guide and will follow that up with a RawDigger bird photography exposure guide ...

with love, artie

[Arthur Morris]

For the reposted, I converted the image in Capture One-12 and was able to recover most of the WHITEs with some detail. Your original post was too large a crop for my taste so after leveling the image I opted to keep the front end of the duck (that I thought was a cormorant) and added a sliver of canvas on the right. I love the o-o-f green stuff at the bottom. Then I cleaned up a ton of crud in the water. Working large, I did boost the color in the eye skins a bit. Everything else was pretty much straightforward. I did pull down on the contrast a bit during the RAW conversion.

I used the Patch Tool to bring in detail to the brightest areas on the lower breast band only.

with love, artie

ps: from where I sit the repost is a huge improvement ...

[Brian Sump]

Artie, thank you for posting the info here for learning purposes. Per my email:

Definitely darker overall and my recollection coming into the light was it was a bit brighter. I would take your version in my portfolio for sure though.

Few things:

1. I was afraid to reduce highs much more because to me it's important to keep whites strong as in some images the whites get totally subdued as if they're always shot in overcast
2. Usually it seems best practice is to crop BIF tight. Always subjective
3. Would typically be hesitant to leave the hen (bird on left) in the image because I would have thought it to be distracting. Not bad though
4. I loved the green at bottom too! But see #2 above
5. The grafted feathers into forehead was great; should have done that from the be

[Arthur Morris]

Artie, thank you for posting the info here for learning purposes. Per my email:

Definitely darker overall and my recollection coming into the light

was it was a bit brighter. I would take your version in my portfolio for sure though.

Few things:

1. I was afraid to reduce highs much more because to me it's important to keep whites strong as in some images the whites get totally subdued as if they're always shot in overcast
2. Usually it seems best practice is to crop BIF tight. Always subjective
3. Would typically be hesitant to leave the hen (bird on left) in the image because I would have thought it to be distracting. Not bad though
4. I loved the green at bottom too! But see #2 above
5. The grafted feathers into forehead was great; should have done that from the be

WW, YAW.

I was afraid to reduce highs much more because to me it's important to keep whites strong as some members' images the whites get totally subdued as if they're always shot in overcast.

I understand that you did not want to reduce the highs because it's important to you to keep the whites strong (as some members' images the whites get totally subdued as if they're always shot in overcast) . But, WHITES do not have to be blown out without detail to be bright. I do not agree that the best practice for BIF is to crop tight. All crops reduce image quality. The greater the crop, the more the IQ is de-graded. The crop, however, is subjective.

As for the hen -- jeez, I thought that it was a cormorant -- some might see it as a plus. I removed it easily for the second repost. For that repost, I also moved the bird left in the frame a bit, kept all of the green at the bottom, and boosted the WHITEs. They are now in the mid-240s on the RAW file.

Thanks for being a teacher.

YAW; that's my job :)

with love, a