Ring-billed gull sticking its tongue out

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

40D. 400f5.6 at f/7.1. iso 400. 1/3200. Ai-servo. Techs are such because I was attempting to nail a 'take-off' shot. Morning light. I have processed it to be a little high-contrast. I feel that that focuses the attention on the head more. I did not have any details in the black primaries due to the strong morning light.

Once a week I spend some time with the gulls in my neighborhood lake. Every time I come home with something different...so that has kept me excited.

I am happy I used a burst here because the frame before and after did not have the tongue out. This is a 70% crop already...so did not want to crop more.

All opinions welcome.

[Doug Brown]

Awesome pose! You handled the light nicely IMO. The tongue looks a little hazy; did you do any BG blurring?

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Doug...no BG blurring. I did some NR using neatimage which might have softened it a bit. I am personally not extremely happy with the head/tongue sharpness. I was in Ai-servo mode so my suspicion is the focus was not sharp on head( as I might have recomposed after initial focus acquisition). I always forget to use that button to lock focus in AI-servo.

[Arthur Morris]

Love the tongue and the perfect head angle for the pose. For the repost I sharpened the head and the tongue. Does it look any better?

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

It does Artie. The head, I can probably handle. I follow your refine-edge tutorial. But how do you select the tongue and not cause sharpening halo? Thanks a bunch.

[Stu Bowie]

Great timing KD, and I like the exposure on the gull.

[arash_hazeghi]

I love the low angle, open beak and tongue here, since the ISO was low I would be tempted to try a tighter crop with more sharpening. nice exposure

[Arthur Morris]

It does Artie. The head, I can probably handle. I follow your refine-edge tutorial. But how do you select the tongue and not cause sharpening halo? Thanks a bunch.

I selected the BKGR and then selected Inverse. Then I eliminated most of the bird with the Lasso Tool/Subtract from Selection. Then I used Refine Edge at Radius: 0, Contrast: 0, Smooth: 2, Feather: .6, and Contract/Expand: 0. Had I thought about it more I would have played around with low settings for Radius and Contrast. Then I used a Contrast Mask at 15/65/0.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Thx Artie.

[Stephen Stephen]

Kaustubh I like this image for the head turn. low angle and of course the open bill and tongue. Artie's re-work improved the details.

[Martin Wallis]

love the HA and low angle, artie's sharpening is awesome.

[Paul Kusmin]

Great info and re-post Artie and a very nice shot to begin with Kaustubh.
Love the pose and action and of course the low angle works well.