Another female Snail Kite

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

I hope this image ihas had better PP. This image was taken from Jim Nieger's boat along with the other images submitted earlier this week. Coments more than welcome. Shooting info below:
Nikon D3
2010:03:05 165:06
200-400mm @ 650mm
650mm (in 35mm film)
Subject dist: 30m
1/1000 sec, f/6.7
Mode: Av
Metering: Multi-segment
Exp comp: +1/3
ISO: 800
White balance: Fine weather
Flash: Off
File size: 31.3MB
Image size: 1622 x 1244
Color space: sRGB
Saturation: Normal
Sharpness: Normal
Contrast: Normal
Color profile: sRGB

[Ilija Dukovski]

The pose and composition is good, very good looking bird,
but the IQ is not there, similar to the image Arash re-posted.
The snail actually looks better than the bird in term of IQ.
The ovearall image looks more like a painting that a photography,
which is fine if you like it as an OOB. I usually get this
effect in ACR with masked sharpening and noise reduction.
Can you tell us a bit how you do the raw conversion?

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

Hi Ilija- I am more than happy to share what I do when I convert my images. I use LR2 for the convertion and then I crop the image so that the bird is possitioned in the way I think looks best. I then Use NIK sharpener plug-in to slightly sharpen only the bird. Then I return to LR and use it to export and change the image to J-peg so I can post it to BPN. That's it on this image. Sorry that you didn't think the PP was up to the standards I would like it to be. Thanks much for your thoughts. Any more thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Mac

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Wheeler, this has got the same IQ issues, wait until tonight I will post a quick tutorial that will solve your problems :)


Arash

[Ilija Dukovski]

Wheeler, unifortunately I use only PS and ACR, not familiar with LR2.
Seems like Arash has the answer. Let's wait and see:)

[Fabs Forns]

The painterly look covered, I'll go straight to the composition. The bird is looking to the right and we have all that empty space in the left doing nothing. That bird needs to be placed left in the frame.

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

Ok Fabs here it is cropped the way you suggested. There is no post processing excpt LR2 conversion. Hope you like it this way, I do.
Mac

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

Sorry forgot the image.

[Fabs Forns]

Compo is spot on now, Mac. I'd add some black to the Neutrals in Selective color and sharpen the eye some more.

[Doug Brown]

I prefer the composition of the repost. I do see the same PP issues with this frame as I did with the last female Snail Kite.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Wheeler

The head is not really sharp, not sure if its on the PP or image itself? Imagine you had to be hand holding in the boat and at 1/1000 could be tough. With a D3 I would crank up the ISO for another full stop of speed !! ... btw the feathers on these birds are tough to get sharp. Got lots from last year and they needed to be in the best of light !!! Do think the birds Jim finds look better than the ones we have down here !!!

[Doug Brown]

Al brings up some good points. Although I'm not entirely familiar with how Nikon exposures compare with Canon, I think you were significantly overexposed. My settings for the same bird were: f/7.1, 1/2000, ISO 500. That's almost 2 stops of difference. Here's a 100% crop of my unprocessed image of the same bird in a similar pose. I'm both stopped down and faster compared to your frame, and both of those factors would have improved your image IMO.

[Doug Brown]

One more version; this one also unprocessed but cropped like yours.

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

Here is one more try using a slight bit of sharpen on the bird only and I added a little black to the neutral. Is this any better?

[Ofer Levy]

Hi Wheeler, used your last repost as the starting point for this version.
Added some canvas to the left and cropped off the top.
Tried to adjust levels, contrast and brightness. Looks like Doug is right and the image is slightly overexposed and soft. You also tend to oversharpen which makes your images look like a big crop.
Cheers,
Ofer ;)

[Jim Neiger]

Here is yet another version and exposure. My exposure was 1/2000, F7.1, ISO 640. I converted in BB Pro with standard parms then cropped resized and posted. No PS work at all.