Gina, her sister and I took in the Reid Park Zoo in Tucson, AZ yesterday. Had a great day taking in all the wild life, and loved every minute. As it was nearing the end of the day I came about these 2 huge King Vulture's from Brazil that thrilled me with their majesty and rainment. Only nit was that they were behind a heavy rectangular spaced metal fence, and tough to even focus on the birds and get a shallow DOF that would minimze the fence. Also my view point was bad footing for this old Codger with declining sense of balance. Only plus was that I was a Stubborn Swede and thought where there's a will there's away ??? With rays of sunshine making hot spots within the cage I would have to expose to minimize them too. So . . . first I picked out a spot where I could feel solid and could hold the camera steady with one hand ~ then I picked out a tree trunk to the side of the cage that I estimated was the same distance as the main bird was from me. I focused on the tree trunk, held that focus, moved it over to the bird and fired off 3 shots.
Didn't expect too much, but looking at the results at home, I decided that I couldn't make a classic sharp photo, however, I could see possibilities of making a finished photo that would show what the Vulture looked like in a sort of moody effort suiting my taste.
My biggest problem was hot spots in places that were tough to clone or QM to minimize without too much overspray . . . So, I captured a rectangle from the top left to center portion of the top that was neutral to the over all BG. I then took this piece into a free program called 20~20 which would convert it into a seamless jpg I could make a seamless BG the same size as the photo of the King Vulture.
I then took my created BG & King Vulture into CS4, I then pressed "V" (move) and dragged the King Vulture over the BG as a second layer. Then used background eraser at different tolerances and got rid of all the hot spots. Used some curves, selective sharpening & curves on bird using QM. Quite a bit of fiddling to get final creation . . . . No selective sharpening on eye, and parts of bird left slightly blurred for effect. Sort of a exercise of experimentation.
CC's welcome and always appreciated
Uncle Gus aka "Windy" WABI . . . .
Olympus E-520 IS, Zuiko 70-300mm ED
Aperture priority.
F/5.6, 1/60s
ISO 400
0.30 ev
Auto WB
228 mm focal length
Fill flash
Last edited by Gus Hallgren; 11-17-2008 at 11:46 PM.
Reason: Spelling
I couldn't agree more - this is a wonderful artistic image, very moody. The general softness gives a gentle tone not usually seen in vulture images.
Very well done
Gail
A face only a mother can love Uncle Gus...well composed. I like the combination of colors that this fellow has...good show...the eye does it for me...:cool:
I like all the colours in this one Gus and the pose from behind. You did well to get a shot, and another bird I have never seen. Thanks for showing this colourful bird to us!
"So Ugly, It's Beautiful"
