Stayed up watching a movie too late last night to brave the cold early this morning, but I ventured out to the beach this afternoon to try out my home-built skimmer/groundpod. Wasn't much happening on the beach except for sea gulls and two sanderlings. Hard to resist a bird as cute as a sanderling. ;) 40D, Bigma @ 500mm, iso 100, f/10.0, 1/160. Post using CS3 includes RAW conversion via ACR with slight Sat., Clarity and Vibrance boost, selective sharpening in PS (bird + eye), noise reduction to the bg, some Shadow/Highlight adjustment to improve feather detail, removal/cloning of a wave that was creating a distracting horizontal through the birds head, removal of a small shadow on the birds breast cast by his beak.
Last edited by Bob Decker; 01-03-2010 at 08:08 PM.
Hi Bob - like the HA and eye contact and the low shooting angle.
Your little guy appears a tad soft - your shutter speed was a little slow for the focal length which could explain it - would maybe bump the ISO up a bit to increase the shutter speed.
Cloning marks are visible on the LHS across from the head. showing as a rectangular area that doesnt match with the BG.
Keep em comig :)
Hi Bob,
I like the ultra low capture angle. You have both good head angle and eye contact. Agree with Mr. Peters on your little guy being a tad on the soft side...I like the color rendition...keep them coming...:cool:
Agree with the above comments, and the need for more ss, and would add that I really like the beach with all its pebbles and small shelled beasties.
Cheers
Gail
Here's a bit of additional sharpening, clean-up and curves adjustment. Little guy was giving me fits and I wasn't paying close enough attention to settings... hence the shutter speed being a bit low.
Love the low angle, the fine white feather details, and the environment. The eye shows motion blur as mentioned. Your repose still see a trace of cloning in the background near the top left of the head, you can see a straight line going through there. You did a good job removing the shadow. These guy sure very cute.
In looking at the original posted image, I agree the eye and face area seem soft, but at the same time, at least to me, the legs and some of the surrounding shells behind the plane of the face seem much sharper. So even though a faster ss would help overall, am I just imagining a focus problem? If it is my imagination , i'll just pass it off as my old age :D
Dave, he was fidgiting around a lot. I was inclined to think I missed focus as my old eyes were seeing parts in focus as well. As an experiment, and for some giggles, I just ran the image through the "Focus Magic" plug-in, then through "Noiseware" to see what would happen. Interestingly, the preview in FM looked better if I ran it for motion blur at about 65 degrees than trying to correct for "out of focus." Focus Magic is a plug-in I've used on rare occassion to salvage a somewhat critical shot during a wedding or event where I ended up with the dreaded "back-focus" or a touch of motion blur. Never tried it on a bird before. Above is the result:
Last edited by Bob Decker; 01-04-2010 at 11:33 AM.
First 2010 Bird: Sanderling
