Roseate Spoonbill in Flight

[Pat Bonish]

I was able to capture this shot of a Roseate Spoonbill taking to flight while watching a group of them off of Seahorse Key (Cedar Keys area of Florida) a few days ago.



Birds in Flight have been a new passion for me ever since we moved here last January. I'm looking forward to learning more from some of the masters on this forum

Canon 30D - 400 f/2.8 with 1.4X - 1/640 @ f/6.3 - ISO 400 Mounted on a Wimberley WH-200 shot from a boat

[arash_hazeghi]

nice flight shot against a busy BG, great BG too, I prefer moving the bird the left and lower corner as opposed to center composition. A few frames before this where the bird is parallel to camera would have been ideal. TFS

[Pat Bonish]

Thanks for the comments Arash, I'll rework the photo and see if I can move it, I believe I've cropped this is a bit, so I'll see what it looks like with the bird moved away from center

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

Welcome to the forum - you will learn loads here! Although the bird is indeed leaving the frame, I like the diagonal shape that you have presented and the details are lovely :)
Best,
Nicki

[Troy Lim]

Agree with Arash, too much room on the room not enough on top left. TFS.

[Pat Bonish]

Thanks for the comments!!

[Arthur Morris]

nice flight shot against a busy BG, great BG too, I prefer moving the bird the left and lower corner as opposed to center composition. A few frames before this where the bird is parallel to camera would have been ideal. TFS

Arash meant moving the bird right...

The BKGR color is nice but the BKGR is quite noisy. The near wing is not raised enough, and the pinks are too saturated.

[arash_hazeghi]

yes to the right, sorry for brain typo!

[Pat Bonish]

Does anyone have suggestions on how to tone down the background noise?

[Arthur Morris]

Select the BKGR or paint a Quick Mask. In Photoshop got to Filter/Noise/Reduce Noise. Axel first recommended this to me and suggested the following settings; Strength: 5. Preserve Details: 0%. Reduce Color Noise: 45%. Sharpen details: 0%. Then he adjust only the strength.

I began using more aggressive settings for Reduce Color noise and have continued to do so while adjusting Strength.

I often follow that up with either a .5 or 1 pixel Gaussian Blur on the layer.