The Profile Of A Dove

[kostas nianiopoulos]

I hope u will not kill me thanks i post a image over here , useal i post in ETL and macro , i got this guy , from the central garden in Athens from hot day . Im not any specialist in birds as a lot is in here , and i dont have any long lens like 500mm or 600mm .

crop , levels , topaz denoise .

canon 50d , 1/8000 , f2,8 , iso 800 , EF USM IS 100MM MACRO L .

thanks for watching .

[Aidan Briggs]

Nice composition and pose here. In the future I would try to look for a less distracting BG. Toning down the orange part of the BG in this image would help.

Looking forward to more images!!

[Phil Ertel]

Hi Kostas,

I also like the pose. In my opinion the head angle is good as there is a slight turn toads the viewer which provides a connect. I like the detail you I see. I personally like the two tone background with its gradation. However, I appreciate Aidan's comment and suspect that this background may not be to everyones liking. If this were mine I would do the following:

1) Make a layer of just the bird and one for the background so I can run adjustments on one without effecting the other.
2) I would blur the background layer to smooth it and reduce the vibrance.
3) I set the white and black point on the bird layer using a threshold layer and used the white and black Eye Droppers in a curve layer to adjust the bird. This brightened the bird up quite a bit. Not being similar with the coloration of this bird I did not attempt to adjust the colors anymore other than resetting the white and black points.
4) Lastly I ran some shadow/highlight adjustment on a duplicate bird layer to bring some of the detail out in the darker areas of the bird.

What do you think? Does this still represent what you saw in the field?

Thanks for sharing.

[Michael Zajac]

Phil's repost looks great. I do wish the bill were sharper.

[James Shadle]

Kostas,
You used a shutter speed of 1/8000 of second and an aperture of F2.8.
You had plenty of room to lower your shutter speed and stop your aperture down.
That would increase the DOF allowing the eye and bill to be in focus.

[kostas nianiopoulos]

Yes James indeed u are right , thank u Phil for the great repost and your advices , it sure looks much better for my taste i have not take a lot images from birds any way . , thank u all :)