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Thread: Teal portrait

  1. #1
    Forum Participant Richard Unsworth's Avatar
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    Default Teal portrait

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    Hi

    Spotted this pretty Teal; the UK's smallest duck in amongst hundreds of Mallards - just 1 Teal
    Unfortunately the light was difficult; across the lake from the left of pic.

    Particularly like the water drops though

    Canon 40D 100-400 at 320
    f 5.6 SS 1/4000 ISO 800

    Rich

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    You did the best you could with the difficult light, Richard. You could try bringing up the shadows a bit in ACR or PS, but since the image was captured at ISO 800, you'll need to watch out for noise.

    The image lacks sharpness on my monitor. This could be due to the harsh light, which I have found can give the impression of fuzziness with certain birds, like ducks.

    The colors seem oversaturated to me - an easy fix in PS. BG is very noisy, but again, this can be fixed easily in PS with some selective NR.

    John

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    Super Moderator Daniel Cadieux's Avatar
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    If your teals are like ours, then they are normally quite wary. Lucky when we spot one associating with Mallards as this often means approachability:). You are right when you say the light was difficult. High, harsh, and off-angle. I'd suggest reducing contrat here (try a reverse S-curve). I also agree with John's mentions of saturation and noise. I imagine this guy was busy feeding with all the water drops on its head!

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    Forum Participant Richard Unsworth's Avatar
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    Hi John

    THANKS

    Yes I think I got over exuberant with the sat!

    went back to raw
    quick masked for NR to BG
    USM @ 122, 1.0, 0

    MUCH BETTER!

    Rich

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    A vast improvement!

    John

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    Much better repost. You might consider removing a few overexposed pixels.

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    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    You did get quite close :) The repost is an improvement over the garish, over-saturated ORIG but is s bit dark. Working in harsh, off angled light is beyond difficult. With the light from the left the forehead and breast are in dark shadow. A ton of flash with a Better Beamer would likely have helped to even out the light.
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  8. #8
    Forum Participant Richard Unsworth's Avatar
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    Hi

    Thanks all

    After Daniel posted I ran a reverse S curve so reposting as...

    Rich

  9. #9
    Ákos Lumnitzer
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    If the light came from over your right shoulder it would have been awesome. As is, it's a difficult situation and I feel you did your best. From the presented image, I believe this may be a large crop judging by the lacking of fine detail and noise in the water especially. In any case, you are heading in the right direction. :)

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