These birds are so common, I thought I would work on my close head studies. Gull was in shadow all except eye beak.
Canon 40D, 100-400 L at 400mm up close. Wrong angle for light but liked it anyway.
F/7.1, 1/2000, iso250, Parial metering. Created today 77am
Hi Bill when you photograph a bird part shade/sun the results won't be pretty most of the time Unless you are going for a specific mood best to stay away
I like the sharp and well exposed eye but the rest is sort of dark Trying to open up with bring lots of noise Also would try a different angle In this case eye level or lower would be better !!!
I'm going to decent and say that I really like this one. I don't think it would have worked with the whole bird in mixed light, but I like the way the bill and eye are highlighted here. I think the way the edges of the head and breast fade into shadow is very moody and artistic.
There is a really feint dark area at about 7 O'Clock from the eye that looks like a dust spot. Whether it is or not, I'd get rid of it.
The darker spots look like dirt to me, but I'd consider cloning them too.
Thanks Alfred and Jim. I wasn't going to comment but I did actually want to get the darker effect shown here. Looking down past the bird onto the dark oysters presented the opportunity to be a lazy way of creating this image. There are some dirt specks showing on the bird and are actual but there may also be a dust spot. I will check. As these birds always fly around and do present nice sky type images, I just wanted to see what others thought of this darker background. This was a large Gull about twice as big as regular gulls and it just put on a show for me for quite a while. I was glad to have it around and glad it obliged me this am. bf
Have to say that is a different perspective Bill. I may have to revisit this one, not sure I am crazy about this but pretty good. The feathers around the eye look a little smeared? I do like that the bird stands out well against the dark background but I think I would like it a bit further back. Still a nice image.
Hi George, Thanks for your comments. It is pretty close and maybe a little farther back would help. I have about 10 images similar and they all have he smeared look around the eye. I was curious but have no idea what it is. Also took a Pigeon up close and feathers look fine on it so it must just be this bird.