This is the adult version of the juvenile skimmer I posted the other day from Cape May. Similar issues of pose and sun angle, and difficult light for a black and white bird, but the histogram looks ok to me. Certainly didn't need all that speed. Full-frame in width, but probably could crop more off the top. C&C welcome.
wow, you certainly couldn't get an angle any lower than this! lol great HA and eye contact and image looks sharp. almost looks like the bird is plowing its way through the sand. very nice image. thanks for posting it.
Hi Bill - love the low angle - good HA and eye contact. Might add a tad of contrast looks a tad flat, histogram shows the white area of the neck to be just a little over - rescue during RAW conversion or may just be a result of PP conversion to JPG.
Love the BG - courtesy of the low shooting angle - might crop some from the top to give it more of a pano feel.
Hi Bill,
I like the ultra low capture angle...agree with the sound advise given, would try cropping from the bottom just up to your copy right and a little on top for a tighter pano...looking good...:cool:
Very nice full frame shot, I love the pose, details and eye contact. I think the transition between sand to blue sky in the background is beautiful. Agree with Lance, the white area around the cheek is hot, but you probably can save that with RAW.
Thanks, all. Here is a pano version as suggested. In the TIFF file of the OP the histogram showed 99.98% at 254 or lower (100% @255). When I converted to JPEG it showed 99.52% @ 254 so I burned the cheek slightly to get it to 100%. Then I tried adding a bit of contrast using USM at 20/50/0 at 50% opacity, which lost a bit of detail in the blacks but kept the histogram at 99.99% at 254 or lower (0.18% at 7 or below). That is what I have reposted here. Am I on the right track with these interventions? To my eye, although the additional contrast helps it to pop, I may have overdone it. Thanks for the help.
The re post does have a little much contrast. One thing you can do in PS to increase contrast is going to image>adjust>selective color> ... then add a couple of points to the neutral and black. Does give it a little pop and easy to control, if you do it on a layer can even reduce opacity if need it for more control !!
Love the image and would crop a little from the top. I'm sure it was not an option here but don't like seeing just a little part of the head on the blue part, more or less would be fine !! Skimmers are fun !!
Thanks Alfred. I was so intent on getting low that I wasn't watching the position of the head against the horizon. I couldn't have gotten any lower without a shovel, but I might have propped myself up on my elbows and gotten all of the head into the sand color rather than halfway. Good suggestion. Regarding the contrast, I'm using PS Elements 7.0 which doesn't offer all of the adjustability of full PS. But I found that if I go to Enhance>Adjust Color>Adjust Color Curves I can create a slight S-curve on a layer, tweak the opacity, and achieve a contrast adjustment halfway between my OP and the repost. I haven't bothered to repost again, but it's a useful lesson to learn. Thank you.
Black Skimmer, the sequal
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