Fortuante to get these. Was at work. thought about going out for some "shooting" but quite winding, very overccast, look like like rain. Thus stayed at work a little longer then Left to go home and found a flock of about 100 of these in a tree and bush in the parking lot.
Nikon D200 600 mm TC 1.4x
Aperture priority, EV +1, ISO 400
F6.3 SS 1/500
Fill flash -1.3 Catch light from the flash
Cloned out some blotches in the BG and added canvas to the bottom.
Should the catchlight be smaller?
Why is this type of BG called "high key" ?
Beautiful dual poses and nice perch. Exposure looks good on my screen. Catchlight on upper bird is a bit bold but not bad to me. I know the birds are looking to our right, thus the canvas you've left on that side, but I might try a version that crops both sides to make it vertical. Very lovely.
Hi Ray.....I agree with Bill's assesment but would like to note their seem to be splotches leftover fron cloning both on the right and left side. If you take care of these it would be a most beautiful image. Cropping as suggested sounds good to me.
Greetings. A beautiful pair... nice color. The catch lights in portrait photography would be considered "monster lighting", that is, lighting source below the equator of the eye... subtly unnatural here (the sun could never be in that position, below the horizon). You might consider moving them up in the eye.
Very nice, Ray. I too like the dual pose and the perch. You got good fine feather detail on these two, a very tough thing with this species. (at least in my case)
Peter
Hi Ray - lots to like here - angle is a little steep. Could just be my screen but does seem to be a bit of a lack of fine feather detail - has a smooth look - was noise reduction used on the whole image???
The BG needs a little cleaning up.
High key refers to the effect of having the BG of the image blown out - IE - Totally white.
Hi Ray, Agree with Lances regarding angle. I like the repost very much which to my eye brings out the color and detail more. Has a tendancy to make the birds pop...
Thanks to everyone for your comments and suggestions very helpful
It is interesting: I can not see the blotches on the image before sent to BPN but I can clearly see them on the posted image.
I agree the birds look a little soft. They do look better on the final before post image . I have noticed sometimes there is loss detail when posting but other times no loss of detail even though I think I use the same workflow.
Very interesting information about the catch light, Michael. I will need to remember that.
I did not apply NR to the birds.
