Arctic Tern

[gail bisson]

This is bird #3 from my Iceland challenge with Ann and Bill.
Canon 1 DX 600mm v3 and 1.4x
ISO 1600 F 5.6 SS 1/2000
70% FF
Nothing added or cloned but did smooth out an area in the BG RUC. The purple is from lupins in the BG,
Comments and critiques always appreciated and learned from with thanks,
Gail

[Randy Stout]

Gail:

Nice comp, well exposed. Lupins add a bit of color, but are soft enough to not be distracting for me.

I like how the wing and tail shapes work with each other, but would prefer the training edge of the left wing to not intersect with the face.

Perhaps lighten the eye just a sliver so it stands out a bit more. I am sure this is accurate as shown however.

Cheers

Randy

[gail bisson]

Thanks Randy. I thought about cloning away part of the wing by the beak but got lazy. Here is redo!
I also dodged the eye a bit but didn't make much difference.
Thanks for the suggestion!

[annmpacheco]

Hi Gail, lovely flight position, those tail feathers are wonderful, HA and the repost is an improvement. BG is a delight, very nice.

[Kurt Bowman]

Really like this Gail. I love the tail and the wing position is very nice. I agree with the initial comments, but the repost corrects them 9eye as much as you can without it looking overworked). Nicely done!

[Randy Stout]

Gail:

I think the changes are helpful. I fiddled with the eye a bit more, and by using the brightness slider set at +80, blocked the effect by a black mask and then slowly using the brush tool set to white on the mask to lighten the eye a tiny bit at a time, was able to bring up the catchlight nicely without making it look unnatural. Lots of other ways, but I think it is a modest improvement.

[Bill Dix]

Great flight position, and gorgeous BG. Repost is an improvement, both for the bit of wing removed and for the eye. To me, Randy's RP goes just a bit too far with the eye.

[annmpacheco]

I'm really liking Randy's eye work, to me it looks natural and i for one will make myself learn this technique. Thousands of tern images and bc i don't see the eye and catchlight, I delete. I'm not trying to invent the wheel for every image, but this is indeed a handy tool to have in the toolbox. Thanks

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Andreas,
I too, am surprised by the noise on the wing. I only raised the exposure by 1/3 of a stop in PP so I would not expect to see noise in the whites.
It was a bit misty at the time so perhaps that is contributing.
Thanks for commenting.

Hi Gail ... nice flight pose and the BG is stunning .
Personally I think there is too much noise visible in the subject .... upper and under wing area quite obvious , at least here .
Would expect less noise at Iso 1600 with the 1Dx unless the image was underexposed .

Randy´s eye work does look quite good to me.

TFS Andreas

[Brian Sump]

Gail, I love the white against the rich colors. Cool flight pose.

The RP takes it up a notch. You must have some collection of photos from the trip.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Nice shot Gail, the cosmetic cloning of feather works but I personally would not do so. I like the repost, I too am rather surprised at the noise in the image from that camera, I might have possibly expected it from mine but not yours.

[John Mack]

Great flight pose. Really like that dappled background. Framing is perfect. I do like Randy's repost.