Two first year trumpeter swans

[Ben Egbert]

Last week I posted the adults, here are the young the resident pair raised this year at Turnbill NWR Eastern WA.
This was an extremely cloudy day, and had the sun been visible, it would have been behind the birds. The water was pretty yucky, so I masked the birds and darkened the water.

50D, 500ff+1.4x at f5.6, 1/125 sec, from a Wimberly Sidekick. Iso 400

Processed in CS3, +0.05 exposure boost at conversion (a nearly perfect exposure)
I use neat image on the background, then PK sharpen capture sharpen, followed by levels, curves, a DR routine in FM Velvia applied to the birds with a brush, selective darkening of the background, selective sharpening of the bird, especially the front bird which was slightly outside DOF (back bird was perfect). I then use a global creative sharpening on the entire image with PK Sharpen. I save full size and upload to SmugMug.
SmugMug applies a user specified output sharpening to downsized images when I link.

I think the pose is too great not to show. But the image is flawed. Terrible light, front bird outside DOF, ugly water. What would you do?

[Lance Peters]

hi Ben - agree with your self critique - IMHO usually you would go with the bird in front for your focus, dont know that you would have had enough DOF to cover both no matter what you did.
Like the two indentical poses.
Shutter speed was a little slow considering the magnification - might have bumped the ISO up a little more.
The water doesnt look too bad - think I wold crop some from the bottom - reflections are not worth keeping - IMHO.
Keep em coming :)

[Ben Egbert]

hi Ben - agree with your self critique - IMHO usually you would go with the bird in front for your focus, dont know that you would have had enough DOF to cover both no matter what you did.
Like the two indentical poses.
Shutter speed was a little slow considering the magnification - might have bumped the ISO up a little more.
The water doesnt look too bad - think I wold crop some from the bottom - reflections are not worth keeping - IMHO.
Keep em coming :)

Thanks Lance.

I was struggling with light here. Iso 400 is as low as I push when I have low light and large crop. These swans are probably far south by now, but perhaps next year I will go back. This is an afternnoon or evening location. The real problem is, this is a shallow pond with active feeding which stirs up the junk and makes for ugle water. This image was the best of the lot for debris, and making it dark helped.

I have one more, a young and adult combo. But I am thinking these are probably a lost cause at this time. I actually have a pretty good adult solo, but the water is really ugly in that one.

[Alfred Forns]

Fully agree on cropping reflections, not that strong and would love seeing more of the birds !!! Tech wise crank up that ISO and worry about noise later !!!

[Katie Rupp]

Hi Ben, the dark water adds a dramatic touch and the identical HA's are very nice. I agree that a crop from the bottom will strengthen the image and I'm wondering if it needs just a little CW rotation?

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Ben,
I like this image and capture. The head angles are good...agree with the techs. The main factor here is your shutter speed. Keep them coming Sir. :cool:

[Ben Egbert]

Thanks all for reply. Here is a rotated crop.