Two dowitchers

[wendell westfall]

D90 70-200VR+2x@400 1/2500 f6.3 ISO800 -2/3EV handheld

I kinda like multiple birds in a picture. These two walked along slowly in the muddy marsh in front of me, constantly jabbing their beaks into the mud. I think I caught them about the right distance apart and near enough equidistant from the "plane". I remember it as being an overcast morning with very little creature activity otherwise. Minor crop and PP. I welcome all comments.

Wendell

[David Gancarz]

Wendell: I really like the composition. I'm glad they cooperated! The overall image seems a little washed out on my monitor. Here is an edit in which I lowered the response curve on the peak of the histogram to boost the contrast a little.

[Colin Knight]

I very much like the comp here, the distance between the birds, the pose, it's really quite good. What I'm seeing is very soft image though. It doesn't seem that either of the birds is sharp. Could this be due to NR? I know the D90 applies some harsh NR to its jpegs, IMO. But you may have been shooting RAW.

May just be a tad too much dead space at the top.

[wendell westfall]

David, you're probably right about lack of contrast . . . thanks for your work.
Colin, I do shoot RAW. I applied a bit of selective USM to the birds, but perhaps not enough . . . and the NR was applied selectively (to BG only).

[Arthur Morris]

Sharpness and d-o-f look pretty good to me. The light looks pretty harsh and the image looks overall too bright. The last thing that you want to do then is increase contrast.... Simply pulling the curve down would improve this. Some Selective sharpening on the head of the rear bird would improve the whole thing. I go like the composition as it is quite balanced.

[David Gancarz]

Artie: Hmmm. You have, of course, rightly pointed out that boosting contrast in a harsh lighting condition is not recommended, but I think pulling the curve down amounts to the same thing, at least for this image. It has a histogram with a single, pronounced peak in the midtones. Suppression of the response over this peak results in a degree of histogram equalization; that is, boosting contrast. Not to be overly pedantic (it is the engineer in me), but I offer an experiment shown in the attached graphs. The left graph shows an original histogram (Series 1 distribution function) similar in shape to the dowitcher image, and a modified histogram (Series 2) with the peak lowered by selectively lowering the response curve over the peak. The right hand image shows the corresponding cumulative intensity distribution functions. Series2 has been equalized compared to Series1; i.e., it more closely resembles a straight diagonal line than the original -- contrast has been increased. (none of which does a darned thing for improving the image).

[Arthur Morris]

David, With all due repsect, I cannot follow the technical stuff in your comments. Increasing contrast to me means lightening the lights and darkening the darks. Pulling the curve down (from the middle) makes all the lightest and darkest tones darker with the greatest effect on the mid tones. So diagrams aside the two cannot have the same effect on any image. And as I said above, I would never add contrast to an image that I view as overall too light :)

Above is the image with the curve pulled down from the middle. And 20 points of BLACKs added to the NEUTRALs.

[David Gancarz]

Artie: Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post. I hope I didn't come across as second guessing someone with the experience and body of world-class work as yourself. I'm working through a text on the mathematics of image processing; hence my overly theoretic post. I will endeavor to balance my enthusiasm for theory with the basic ideals of birdphotographers.net.:o

[Arthur Morris]

No sweat David and thanks both for you note and your membership support. I just try to stay away from the technical stuff. :)