Okay, last skimmer from Nickerson for a bit. Taken with the 40D, 500 f4 AV at 6.3, 1/200 iso 400. I don't often get this close to any birds and I typically prefer more room but I took this because I could. It may be the first time I have taken the 1.4 TC off of the 500 since I got it.
THis is a great tight portrait Carole. I love it. I would probably clean the bill from the white specks. What is the little red/gray blotch in front of the egg? Is that an already hatched chick?
Thanks for sharing. This is really sweet!
Considering the shooting conditions there with the light and vegetation I think this looks great!! I like the clear visible eye. The eggs are a plus and that does look like a beak. I might clean up the 2 small beige blotches at the base of the image. Nicely done!!
Very nice image, Carole. Like the light and HA. I find the vegetation a little distracting, though not terribly so. I would sharpen the bird's eye a bit. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Carole,
I like your composition, image and capture...I like the close up pose, direct eye contact and feather details...a few points to ponder...I see a blue color cast in the whites, also the eye is not sharp and needs to be lightened a tad...I made a few adjustments by removing the color cast, I lightened the eye and selective sharpened it also opened up the mid-tones and adjusted the black point...see if this presents best to you...:cool:
Carole, This is beautiful. Looks like you grabbed the last light of the evening and made it sing! I do like Gus' treatment of the eye. Great shot of a very interesting bird.
Nice capture Carole - really like the composition, the eggs are a big plus.
Gus's repost is on the money for me. The removal of the blue cast improves it nicely.
wow!! what a great image. I like how Gus' repost lightened the front shadows too. But I think I would remove the little yellow foreground oof spot. That baby beak adds a lot to this image.
Hope you keep posting these. we have none around here!
You did well lining up the bird to avoid merges, maybe just a little more to clear the head with green. Good eye contact and great seeing the eggs !! Re post looks very good !!! Enjoying these very much !!!
You brought up an issue in this thread that has occasionally caused me a lot of grief and confusion when doing PS post-processing. I'm hoping you can provide some clarification and guidance in regards to color casts. I know this can be subjective at times, but I'm hopeful there are recognized guidelines or procedures one can use to deal with them. I also realize that this may not be the best image to use as an example, as it seems to have been shot at dawn or dusk, and would have a warmer tone as a result.
This color cast correction is one of your points to ponder, so I pondered, and ended up really confused. You said that you saw a blue color cast in the whites. Did you mean the sunlit whites on the bird (I couldn't find a blue cast there), or the shadowed whites? If you meant the shadowed whites, isn't it normal to see a blue cast in shadows? I've always been under that impression, perhaps incorrectly...?
I found this thread about color casts http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ead.php?t=7752 in the Educational Resources Forum, and decided to implement Charles Glatzer's procedure. When I did the Filter-Blur-Average (the color seen is the cast present - Charles' words), and checked the color readings, I got this - Red:130, Green:128, Blue:120. Isn't this a yellow color cast? Is it incorrect for me to think that low blue is equivalent to a yellow cast with red and green nearly equal in value, as in this case?
Sure enough, when I finished the procedure, the image turned bluer. So if I've got this right, according to Charles' method, there is a yellow cast. The image posted shows the result of his method.
Can you share with us how you determine first of all that there is a color cast, and of what color, and once you do, how you proceed to correct it? At least for me, and perhaps for others as well, this would be a valuable learning experience.
Thanks for considering my request, Gus.
Lost in color space,
Ron
Last edited by Ron Boisvert; 07-18-2009 at 05:49 PM.
Reason: added word
one more skimmer
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