Western Grebe w/Chick
Hi everyone, here's an image from a couple of years ago taken at Malheur NWR in Oregon, I sat at the water's edge and waited for the grebes with their babies to return closer to shore, which they did after some time. Cropped a bit from the bottom and the left.
20D 500F4 1.4X 1/3200 F8, iso 400, evaluative metering -1.0, Handheld
Last edited by Nate Chappell; 03-19-2009 at 07:23 PM. Reason: Cropped a bit off the top
Love it Nate !!!!!
Lots of shadow detail, two great head positions love that open beak !!! Might take a little of the top but its just taste !!! Big Congrats on this one !!!!
Nate:
Great family interaction here. Nice exposure. Excellent head angles.
In a perfect world, I would like to see more of the parents body, but the image really captures what their environment is like, with the rolling waves.
By chance, do you have another shot with more parent body showing?
Randy
Thanks Randy, I do have some shots with more of the parent's body showing, but not with the beak open like this one. I will post one of those eventually.
Great exposure control, details and the open bill and chick make it special. Another vote for a slight crop off the top.
Great story telling shot. I agree that a little tighter on the crop would be nice. I think the wave covering the lower body adds to the story.
Here it is a bit tighter which reduces the amount at the top some. I wanted to keep it close to an 8x12 ratio and I didn't want to include more of the oof wave at the bottom. What do you think?
Both look good but I prefer the bottom one. As Alfred said, two good head positions. The open beak and wide eyed look make me think she's not liking the coming wave while the chick seems perfectly content and unconcerned. Your patience paid off.
Nate, I love the HA and open beak! Very nice capture,only wish it were mine. I prefer the top image with just a bit off the top-I know you want to keep the 8x12 ratio, so either one then.
I played a bit with the levels and colors on your second image. I don't post here as I don't have your permission but the image improved a lot knowing the sun was shining during taking the image.
However the angle and sharpness is really nice.
Szimi
I love this shot! Really nice capture.
I think it's a tad underexposed. You'll get a little more bounce if you set white point on the neck feathers. And with selective use of S/H, you can pull more of those pretty details out of the shadows. (Cropped here only for display purposes.)
David, That really opened up the little guys eye!
Thanks David, I really like what you've done with the eye of the youngster. For me the blacks look too light on your repost, but when I work on this one again I will go a little lighter and apply some adjustments to the face of the chick.
David, how did you manage to get that chick eye which looks so cool? With simply using shadows I reached a bit strange result. :o :)
Szimi
Thanks. It's hard to judge about what we're each seeing here, because we're using different monitors (I assume yours is calibrated). In any case, you can easily tweak the shadow adjustments to suit. Make the initial adjustment in S/H, being careful about the radius. Then invert the mask and paint with white where you want to open shadows a little. You can lower brush opacity and bring those changes in more in some places, less in others.Originally Posted by Nate Chappell
I used S/H first. That brought the eye out a little, but not enough to suit me. So I added a Curves adjustment layer. That helped a little more, but still not enough, so I added an Exposure adjustment layer in screen mode. Both of the latter layers were restricted to the eye.
Outstanding image, love it as presented! COngratulaitons!
Wonderful capture, Nate !!!
I love the original post best for the "smooth" lighting on the birds.
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