Red capped Plover Female..

[Don Railton]

Hi Guys & Girls

Did a bit of belly crawling this afternoon at a local sandbar and managed to get reasonably close to capture this image of what I think is a female red capped Plover. It's unfortunate her feet were buried in the weed. I did enjoy the afternoon however albiet covered in sand and seaweed.

Cropped to ~ 70% of original and small adjustments in CS4 to levels, curves, H&S and Selective colour, generally following recommendations as per Arties CD.

Canon 10D
70-200 L IS + 1.4TC @ 280mm
F5.6
1/2000
ISO 400
+1/3 Eval. metering

Please feel free to comment...

DON

[Bob Decker]

Nice looking bird. Exposure looks correct. Nice head angle. Wish the image was presented a bit larger. Hard to tell much about detail, etc. at this size. For future reference you're allowed 1000 pixels on the long side. Looks like there's something funky going on at the tip of the beak. Can't tell if the bird is holding something, if it's an artifact, or what? I'm also getting the impression that the focus was on the wing... that the head/eye may be a tad soft. The feet don't bother me. I'm used to sing shorebirds like that.

Good job.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Don, Bob mentioned a number of issues. I notice a softening of detail probably due to the large crop. Also wish for a larger view of the image and with 1/3 of a stop less exposure would have darkened the back a small amt and brought out a small amt more detail in the whites. Would have wished for warmer lighting however good backround and well placed within the frame...

[Lance Peters]

Hi Don -- agree with all of the above comments - also looks over sharpened with a halo around the bill area.
If you could have moved around at all to get even illumination on the bird would have improved.
Good HA and Eye contact.
:)

[Alfred Forns]

Great comments and can add would good to be on sun angle, back portion of bird is well lit up but not the front !!! ... glad you did some crawling around, fun it is !!! btw lots of these little guys will come up to you if you keep still !!!

[Don Railton]

Hi Guys


Thanks very much for all the comments. Image was taken close to Midday hence the bright back but darker underside. I have made a mental note to return to this spot for a sunrise shoot. The small artifact at the tip of the beak is actually a peice of weed. I struggled (again) with complying with the 200KB size limit, and kept making the image smaller to comply. In hindsite I remember reading somewhere that sharpening tends to increase file size, and I got into a spiral where I would resize the image and then sharpen only to find I had to resize again etc... I must look for the post on the correct procedure for sizing images to post.

Alfred, I did notice that these birds would come quite close if you just kept low and still. Keeping still was difficult however as I was lying on shells propping myself up on my elbows. It Hurt..! Will take a mat next time...

DON

[Kerry Perkins]

Don, posting limitations are 1024 max horizontal and 800 max vertical. PS will do this for you and size your image within the 200k size limitation. To get the proper pixel dimensions, go to "file -> automate -> fit image". In the box that pops up put in 1024 pixels for the width and 800 pixels for the height and click "OK". These numbers will stay there for subsequent images unless you change them. Your image is now sized properly as far as dimensions. (Note that this constrains the image to these dimensions, so whichever way it is oriented you will be fine.) You will have to zoom the window to get it to display larger on your screen. Now, when you go to "file -> save for web and devices", you will get the interface for doing just that. In the upper right corner of that interface there is a little triangle next to what looks like a stack of paper. Click on that and a menu will pop up. In that window select "optimize to file size". In the next popup window you will see a box for "desired file size". Put 195k in that box just for a little margin of error. Click "OK" and that window will close and take you back to the "save for web and devices" interface. Click "save", give your file a name and a destination and you are good to go. You will get a full-sized image for BPN at less than 200k file size and it will be the best quality attainable by PS.

PM me if you have any problems with this. :)

[Don Railton]

Hi Kerry

Thanks very much for this information. It is quite different from what I was doing. This is a great site with so many helpful people...

DON

[Kerry Perkins]

You are most welcome Don. Glad to be of assistance!

[Mark Young]

These birds look great in the early sun, can't wait to see your future shots.