Belted Kingfisher

[Arnold Dubin]

This photo of the female Belted Kingfisher was taken at the Viera Wetlands this morning (1/8/09).

Camera - Nikon D200
Lens - Nikon 500mm f-4 manual focus
Teleconverter - Nikon 1.4X
Format - jpg
ISO - 200
Speed - 1/640 sec
Aperture - f-8

I used Lightroom 2 to crop, enhance tonal range, sharpen image

I would appreciate critiques on this photo.

Thanks, ADubin

[Doug Brown]

Great BG and an interesting perch. I think the bird could stand a little more sharpening. A tighter crop, particularly off the bottom and the right would improve this image for me.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great find, head angle and BG. Another vote for more sharpening and NR on the BG. I would also try to get more details in the shadows.

[Tony Whitehead]

Agree with above suggestions. I would suggest shooting RAW as it will give you far more control in processing - would be especially useful in this image to bring more detail into the dark tones. Very nice pose and BG.

[Grady Weed]

Axel and Tony make good points regarding the darker areas, especially on the beak and head right side. It was the first thing i noticed. The second thing, it is a nice iamge. :)

[Stefan Minnig]

In regards to shooting RAW, and then bringing it into Lightroom, I've heard that some people don't like the way Lightroom processes RAW files. Maybe the coloration is off? Personally, I haven't paid the greatest detail when I've brought my RAW files in the program, but it is something to consider when using LR. Maybe, someone else who has heard this LR snippet could elaborate more.

Very nice photo of the Kingfisher by the way.

[Todd Frost]

Nice image, agree on the techs mentioned above. I like the perch as it is very unusual. I think I would take a little off both sides to bring more attention to bird.

Todd

[Stu Bowie]

The KF certainly stands out against the great OOF BG. I would also take a bit off the RHS, to create a more vertical crop, and maybe add a bit to the top. Still, well captured Arnold.

[Nancy A Elwood]

In regards to shooting RAW, and then bringing it into Lightroom, I've heard that some people don't like the way Lightroom processes RAW files. Maybe the coloration is off? Personally, I haven't paid the greatest detail when I've brought my RAW files in the program, but it is something to consider when using LR. Maybe, someone else who has heard this LR snippet could elaborate more.

Very nice photo of the Kingfisher by the way.

Nice image with that sweet BG. I would agree with above comments. As far as RAW, most definitely is the best way to go, but I use NX2 for my RAW pp and finish up, if needed, in CS3, but as a TIFF from NX2. I find NX much better and easier, IMHO, but opinions do vary, for pp the nef's.

[Arnold Dubin]

Thank you for all your feedback and critiques. I really appreciate all of them. Let me respond back to some of your critique items.

I realize I should have been capturing this image in RAW instead of JPG but I accidently hit the QUAL button instead of the ISO button on my Nikon D200. That is the second time that happened to me while I was out in the field. In the future I will monitor this real time when I’m in the field.

Look at the new image I attached. I cropped it tighter then the previous one. I think it looks better now. It is now only 11% of the original size of the captured photo.

I went into Photoshop CS3 and use shadows and highlights controls to lighten my shadows.

I tried 3 different methods on the sharpening (LAB with only luminosity layer, RGB unsharpened mask, and a high pass filter with overlay blend mode). It seems like “LAB with only luminosity layer” gave the best results. I realize there is not much difference in the original one I posted but my biggest concern was not to over sharpen it so I would get a halo around the edges. I also think this tightly cropped photo is also preventing me from doing any additional shapering on this photo.

Again thanks to everyone for their feedback and critiques

ADubin

[Tony Whitehead]

Good job on the repost, Arnold. You've managed to get some better shadow details. The image is starting to suffer from the big crop now though (11% of 10.2 Mp doesn't leave too many :(). My sympathies for pressing the Quality instead if the ISO button - I find the best way to avoid altering the wrong parameter is to check that the ISO in the viewfinder is changing if that's what you're after.