I definitely had a lot of chances to refine (read learn) my long lens technique. It was tough on safari, a lot happens at once and I ended up handholding a lot because I had no time to wait for the vehicle to turn off and use a bean bag. Fortunately, this was a time that after the initial shots, I had time to get better and better ones.
I was shooting the front one when the second landed with a catch. I liked the bit of blue mirroring the colors in the background.
Great image Paul. Love the BG, and detail on the birds. I like your sharpness on this.
Care to share your sharpening technique - I understand if you dont want to share it.
Hi Paul
Just a wonderful image and very appealing to the eye. Also would love to share the sharpening tech. you used as it is right on. Where was the photo captured?
Best to you,
Michael
Great double, captured in stunning light. You have exposed the colours excellently, as people tend to over saturate brightly colours birds. The two are pin sharp, and what a killer BG. Congrats on an outstanding image.
Hi Paul: I am with Daniel on this one. I love everything about it and only wish for more room at the bottom. If you have the extra space, I would give it a try with more room. CAn't wait to see more images from your trip.
This is breath taking. Great technicals with loads of visual impact and oh so colorful.
Thanks for sharing...
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Charlie Wesley
St. Augustine Beach, FL
Thanks everyone, I too wish for a touch more room below but I was shooting the front bird with room to spare. The second flew in, I got 4 frames off and this was the one with the best head angle and room below.
On to sharpening now, not mine, but first described by Marc Adamus, a top notch landscape photographer. Basically, you start with a file roughly double in length of your longest finished size. I usually finish my files at 720 px, so I start with a 1500 px file. Then hit filter>sharpen>sharpen usually twice. Now this looks horrible, but when you downsize(image>resize) it usually comes out great and really makes the fine detais shine. In this one I actually hit the eye of the front bird with the sharpen brush once after it was all said and done. It was like 17%. If you have a lot of space that doesn't need sharpening you can always brush away with the history bush to save on file size as well. Noise and fine details are a pain for getting fiel sizes smaller.
Hope I explained it easy enough. thanks again for all the comments, I really appreciate it.
Paul