Osprey
I was at my local Osprey locale when one of the resident Ospreys decided to fly into the trees and rest on a branch, and thus low light. I had to maneuver quite a bit in order to get a clear view of the bird's head/shoulder area as it was surrounded by leaves and other branches. This is only a small crop in order to cut out distracting branches. Basic adjustments in ACR and PS. Cheers.
D500/500PF, 1/2000sec@f7.1, ISO800.
Great lighting and detail, Paul. Exposure on the whites is perfect. I think the specular highlights are fun. I do wish the gaze was oriented more towards us.
Also, the square-ish crop is a bit wonky. I'd lose some off the bottom, where underexposure has severely limited the detail.
Hi Dorian. I agree about the head angle...i took quite a few different poses, but never got the right one before he flew off. I'm ok with the crop and the section at the bottom left corner as it's like a vignette. I will review and re crop to see what i think. Cheers.
Nicely detailed shot! I think you could easily get more detail in the darker plumage.
Paul, I like this as posted. Really nice detail in the head feathers. I see Jon's point about pulling more out of the dark feathers, but I like the tonality of the image and how dark those feathers were processed.
Thanks so much Jonathan and Kurt. Funny...on looking at it again I do now feel the crop is not working so well and the darker sections could use a lift in detail. Here's a re post. Cheers.
RP much better Paul, an interesting angle on a much photographed bird.
Hi Paul, I think the OP crop does work and I like the intense look. Overall I feel the look is too 'Contrasty' in it's appearance. It lappears perhaps dramatic, with the FG plumage quite dark, juxtapose to the very bright whites of the head plumage, but in doing so the light has created quite strong/harsh whites/darks, creating this contrast look, was the light this bright?
To me in ACR you have the Profile set to Adobe colour and perhaps used Levels and pinched the Histogram, can you clarify please, just trying to ascertain how you got the 'look' so to speak? Personally the RP isn't working, light appears almost even, the plumage in the FG now looks lifted and not right and in part the whites look recovered. Did you add Contrast?
I think Paul, just some simple adjustments to the original would have address some of the main concerns folk voiced, however in the RP you have pushed things too far and lost some of the original qualities.
TFS
Steve
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.
Hi Steve,
Thanks for your feedback and observations. Firstly I did not use Adobe colour profile. I normally try camera standard, adobe neutral or the Nikon linear profile as my starting point. In this case I used the neutral profile. However, I do like the "contrastly" appearance here. The light was low as the Osprey was resting on a branch amongst the trees that overlook the water. The camera settings I used were chosen so as to not blow out the highlights...I made no changes to the highlights in post except to reduce them a tad on the beak.
On the RP I added texture in ACR and sharpening in PS to the darks as well as selectively lifting the darks with a levels adjustment. No adjustments to the lights were made.
All in all I do prefer the original crop, but agree that the darks need a lift. As you say, maybe some adjustments to the darks in the original may be all that's needed. Overall I do like the punchy contrast though. Cheers.
OK, but you are on a hiding to nothing if you start anytime with Adobe colour, period! It simply kills the detail.
You can achieve what you set out to do Paul, but give yourself a fighting chance. In addition, don’t chop and change profiles, stick to Adobe Standard, by ‘fiddling’ as Jon would say, your don’t have a consistent and clear WF, and as I said to Brian, the only reason folk find PP challenging is we introduce the ‘chaos’ factor, ourselves.
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.
Steve. My mistake...I didn't use an Adobe neutral profile. I have camera specific profiles. I just checked and in this case I used camera standard. The profiles in my drop down menus are all camera specific: camera flat,camera standard, camera neutral, camera portrait, camera vivid) as well as Adobe standard and the Nikon linear profile. I do find the Nikon linear a good starting point and often start with that or the camera standard or neutral. I agree about being consistent though so maybe I should stick to one. Cheers.
Best too Paul, 'fiddling' is the Devils invention and he likes to be mischievous.I agree about being consistent though so maybe I should stick to one. Cheers.
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.
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