I've almost deleted this image every day since I made it. Something keeps me from it though.
Lots of things "wrong" with it from clipped body parts to the second bird being OOF, but . . .
The light was harsh at mid day.
D300 ISO 200
600/f4 with TC 1.4
1/640 @ f8 (could have stopped down a little more I imagine)
Natural light
I did a slight (5% shadow, no highlight) S/H adjustment but I like it on the darker side for the mood. Other than that this is full frame, resized and sharpened at 100 % .3 radius for the whole thing, and then selective sharpening on the oof bird's face at 300% .2 radius.
Hi Jim,
To me, the harsh lighting doesn't seem distracting in this capture. I think you've done a very good job with your S/H & sharpening adjustments here, although my eye goes to the highlighted top right wing . The interaction is good and that may be what keeps you from deleting it.
I guess it's something we all ask ourselves on certain images...and also ask is the image "worth the time" to do these repairs? But if something keeps you from deleting it...don't.
I can see why you haven't deleted it Jim - it is a nice typical gull interaction well captured. I would be tempted to crop in hard on it, eliminating the legs of the gull on the left from below and removing the right side up to the back of the near wing of the gull on the right.
I think the interaction between the gulls is interesting, but not compelling or uncommon. If it were mine, I would delete it and keep trying for one I liked better.
I'm with Tony on this one.
If you do not feel comfortable to delete then i wouldn't.
Possibly put in a separate folder like "Another look"
Here is how I would re-crop it.
Cheers: Ian McHenry
Thanks everyone. I like the crop Ian.
I had played with cropping tight, but never could get it too look right. I guess I just didn't look hard enough.
Jim, I get your reasoning behind dumping it to look and waiting for another. I might however, just keep it and look for another to replace it. Not like I'm running out of space or anything.
One of these days I need to just go lay on the boardwalk and shoot boring ole gulls until I get some not so boring shots like this one, but with better light and DoF.
I am with you Jim. I can see why deleting was difficult as the action you captured was very appealing and tells a story. I do like the repost. Thanks for sharing as I think we all face this delema sooner or later.