Speckled Warbler
Speckled Warbler photographed in a nearby eucalypt woodland. The reddish eyebrow distinguishes this as a female. The male has a black eyebrow.
Canon 40D, EF500 f/4 + 1.4 tc, tripod, evaluative, ISO 800, f/7.1, 1/400, neat image noise reduction, full frame, a twig removed from upper left, and a distracting line in background disguised.
Thanks Maxis, has now been uploaded.
Last edited by Simon Bennett; 02-13-2009 at 08:27 PM.
No image.....
Simon- Lovely sharpness and lighting, and what a beautiful bird (what family?). I think you can just get away with the head angle here! I like the perch but you may want to crop so that the OOF portion to the LL is removed. You could try blurring the BG a bit more than it is, so that it is a little less distracting.
A real treat to see this species.
John, thank you for your comments. These little blokes are in the essentially Australian family Acanthizidae which includes many common small Australian bush birds like thornbills, scrubwrens, whitefaces and gerygones.
Really sweet image of a great bird Simon. For those who don't know the species they are seriously hard to get this close too, so although the head angle and BG may be a bit less than ideal, this is still a killer shot for me. Lovely and sharp, great light, and razor sharp. Well done again!
Hooo, how nice species. Seldom seen on forums. Like the sharpness. The bg elements taking my eyes away but you cannot exclude them unfortunately. Nice image anyway.
Szimi
Thanks Simon. I think I have asked this question before. Apologies if I did. Are any Australian "warblers" in the Sylviidae? I saw an image of an "Australian Reed Warbler" the other day that looked quite like the European version.Originally Posted by Simon Bennett
Excellent shot. The lighting, sharpness and composition are spot on. The background is interesting because it suggests the habitat. But as some have mentioned, it may be a little too interesting. One way to overcome that is to select the background and apply a curves adjustment layer, flattening the curve something like this:
Result:
Nice job with the sharpness of this bird. A sweet looking little bird. I reminds me of our Chipping Sparrows.
Thank you all for your comments, and David for the great background curves tip, here's a repost applying the technique, also dealt with lower left branch.
John asked if we had any Old World Warblers down here: our new checklist splits the Sylviidae into a number of families: in Acrocephalidae we have Australian Reed-Warbler plus migrant Oriental Reed-Warbler. In Megaluridae we have five endemics: Little Grassbird, Tawny Grassbird, Rufous Songlark, Brown Songlark and Spinifexbird. Vagrant Arctic Warbler and Middendorf's Warbler also occur.
Last edited by Simon Bennett; 02-14-2009 at 05:28 PM. Reason: Added image
First of all, this is a very nice image with excellent plumage detail and a simple composition.
Secondly it has generated a very useful BG technique using curves - thanks. But I would also be interested to know what method of selection was used.
Melvin
Thanks for your comments Melvin - regarding method of selection of background - I'm just starting to come to grips with this - in Photoshop I initially used the Magic Wand Tool with tolerance set to 5/contiguous to progressivly add to the selection, then refined it by adding/subtracting using the Lasso tool, plus some smoothing and feathering of 3px in Refine Edge. I ended up with a smoothed selection around the bird and main branch.
This is awesome Simon. I have only ever seen one female and photographed too in NW Sydney, but my measly effort does not compare to your masterpiece. I like all the reposted versions, but to be honest the original works just as well and it shows typical habitat too. Thanks mate. Fab effort!
If you have PS CS3, try the quick select tool. Look at the three channels and use the ones that have the best contrast for any give part of the selection. Clean up the selection in Quick Mask mode. That allows you to simply paint in what you want to select. In fact, you could do this whole selection in quick mask mode. Just work your way around the inside edge of the subject and perch. Like this (helps enormously if you have a pen and tablet):
Very nicely done. The tighter crop works well.
That's why I love this site!
There are so many talented photographers and PS masters.
Love the image as presented but David's repost makes this one looks even better. Great job and thanks for sharing this beauty.
Sorry David, can you please elaborate on this a bit more - I may have missed something but don't quite follow how you've done this. Thanks - I've already learnt about the Quick Select tool! And thanks for the curves tip too...getting clean BG's in Australian woodlands can be a real challenge so this tip will be extremely useful.If you have PS CS3, try the quick select tool. Look at the three channels and use the ones that have the best contrast for any give part of the selection. Clean up the selection in Quick Mask mode. That allows you to simply paint in what you want to select. In fact, you could do this whole selection in quick mask mode. Just work your way around the inside edge of the subject and perch. Like this (helps enormously if you have a pen and tablet):
Last edited by Dean Ingwersen; 02-14-2009 at 11:49 PM.
Adapting Juan Carlos's comment- that's why we ALL love this site. Thank you both Simon and David for the info. I generally, in situations where there is a complicated BG, use 'quick mask' from the start - tracing round the outline (with the image magnified to at least 100%) with the diameter of the brush selected according to the sharpness of the outline. Both the size of brush and the hardness can be adjusted as you go, so you can use a softer brush for areas slightly out of focus or 'fluffy' areas of plumage etc. By clicking on 'q' you can toggle backwards and forwards between the 'marching ants' selection indicators and 'quick mask' and refine the edge if necessary - giving you tremendous control over the degree of accuracy of the selection. Finally, of course, filling in the area within the outline!
I hope this may be of use, or for further discussion,
Melvin
It's just a matter of learning how Quick Mask works. There are tons of tutorials, so rather than travel that ground again here, let me point you toward a few. One or another of these should make sense. It's an easy tool to learn.
http://www.expertvillage.com/video/1...de-editing.htm
http://www.grafx-design.com/20photo.php
http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/Phot...ab64-76c1.html
http://www.elated.com/articles/photo...ick-mask-mode/
http://www.idigitalemotion.com/tutor...mask/mask.html
http://justcheckingonall.wordpress.c...mask-tutorial/
Thanks David, much appreciated.
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