Have tried, and failed, many times to capture these beautiful birds in flight. This is a better one from my last series of failures, I did need to crop the image however. Would appreciate any critiques.
Nikon D3S 500 f4 lens
1/4000 @ f4 ISO 400
Hi Deborah- this is one of those images that gets you so excited when seen on the LCD, but at full size the sharpness isn't there. The pose and wing flare though are terrific. Some processing might bring the image up some- sharpening, and possible adjustment of colour balance as I'm seeing a greening cast on my calibrated monitor. Too bad about the grass stem crossing the tail- you could lose that in Ps if you liked.
I would love to see this species let alone photograph it!
A wonderful wing spread in this image. The harsh light is casting a shadow across the face, which can be lightened in post processing. The head also looks a bit soft to me. A added catchlight in the eye would give this some pop.
When I have one like this, that has many good things, but isn't quite what you had hoped, it just fires me up to go out again and try to improve. Good tech. analysis above. I do like the basic comp also.
The bird itself, it's pose, and included habitat are all fabulous. The colours are beautiful. Sharpness, or lack of, already mentioned. Perhaps an extra round of sharpening would work - especially for web posting. I would also lighten the iris (but not toom uch!), and enhance the current (but faint) catchlight via the dodge tool. I wouldn't mind some canvas trimmed off at top.
This is pretty good given the circumstances, and far better than any I have ever taken, IMHO, in addition to the difficult light, sgarpness is the main problem for me, as you have plenty of SS then it is either down to DOF or camera shake, was this hand-held?
When I looked back at the original I found I hadn't really done much sharpening, hope this repost is not overdone. Have also tried to subtly lighten up the shadows without making it look over processed.
Lilac breasted roller
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