In commenting on my last post, Lance Peters strongly recommended not using the converter and relying instead on a closer, stealthier approach. Good advice! So I've been working on it, and this is a first result--I practiced on our plentiful and not-so-easily spooked gulls. This guy cooperated.
Fairfax SRA, Lake Monroe; early afternoon, sun veiled by thin cloud layer.
massimo, i'd like to make a couple of suggestions. one would be to use the early morning light or later evening light. it is much less contrasty and will allow you to expose the entire bird better. another would be put the sun behind you pointing your shadow at the bird. this will illuminate the entire bird, minimizing shadows that are distracting and hard to handle in post processing.
dont be afraid to take some bread, or some other food to lure these guys closer to you. you will need to get it bigger in the frame to capture some nice details. i always TRY!! to get the picture like i want it without cropping down to it. it's tough to do sometimes, but well worth it!!
as far as what you have shown, nice placement of the bird in the frame. the light does look harsh and coming from the right and a little at you. you will have to play the light game and maybe only work certain areas when you know the light is going to be behind you.
Hi Massimo,
I like the image and capture. you have good color rendition...would have liked to have seen a lower capture angle and a wee bit closer to the bird so that he could fill the frame a tad more...I modified your base composition by cropping it to a tight pano, thus eliminating some of the negative space on the top and concentrating more on your gull, I toned down the hot whites on top of the head and on the front portion of the breast, also increased the saturation and contrast by 1 degree and opened up the mid-tones around the eye and selective sharpened the eye as well because it was on the soft side...see if this presents well to you...:cool:
Hi - results are much sharper without the converter.... all good avice given by Mr H above --- Get the light behind you either early or late in the day - with harsh light it is very hard to not blow out your whites.
Well done on working out how to use your exposure compensation!!
Seagulls are the perfect practise - over here they love hot chips - will eat them out of your hands - so hopefully you will be able to get very close indeed.
Hi Massimo,
Good effort to get up close. It will only pay off. I like the crop to pano. Harsh lighting makes it hard for everything to stay within the histogram. Looking forward to more.
Ring-billed gull
