River Tern

[Mital Patel]

River Tern (Sterna aurantia)
Camera : Nikon D300
Lens : Nikkor 80-400D ED VR f4.5/5.6
Exposure : 1/800sec @ 400mm
Aperture : f/8
ISO Rating : 400
Captured On : March 01 2009, 5:30 pm
Location : Thol bird Sanctuary, Kadi, Mehsana, Gujarat, INDIA

C&C Welcome

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Mital...liked the light, composition and the open beak a lot. A little lightening might help...but dont blow the red channel in the beak.

[Mital Patel]

KD i havent worked on the beak or i think i am not following you on the last portion of what you want to say .. please explain for that.

Thanks a lot for suggestions...

[arash_hazeghi]

Nice one Mital, like the open beak here, agree with brightening up

[Mital Patel]

how bout this one ?

[arash_hazeghi]

Better Mital, I would just drag the highlight slider all the way to the right of the detail peak in histogram and adjust the middle slider until bird looks good and not flat. need to meter st least +1EV when shooting against plain sky

[Mital Patel]

instead what if i add 34 contrast only ?

[arash_hazeghi]

instead what if i add 34 contrast only ?

Brightness adjustment shifts the entire histogram data with respect to horizontal axis and contrast is an S cruve so you can basically achieve similar effects but you don't have control over midtones and the image might end up looking flat (as your example)

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Mital, I was suggesting you add exposure to the photo to make the whites look white. But doing so might put the red channel in the beak to 255. So in raw conversion, keep an eye on that.

I will second Arash's suggestion as well....dont know abt Nikon, but with canon 40D, shooting against a bright sky, I always have to add at least +1 exp. comp.

KD

[Daniel Cadieux]

I like the idea of lightening the image as the whites currently look very grey. Good sharpness and basic comp. The open bill is a plus.

[Harshad Barve]

One beautiful image and nice learning thread
TFS

[denise ippolito]

Mital, Nice details,pose and BG. Agree the orig. could go a bit lighter,but just a bit.

[Clement Francis]

Cracker of a flight shot this, wonderfully positioned shot