Camera Model: Canon EOS 30D
Date/Time: 2010:11:19 17:08:14
Shutter speed: 1/800 sec
Aperture: 5.6
Exposure mode: Manual
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Spot
ISO: 800
Lens: EF500mm f/4L IS USM +1.4x
Focal length: 700mm
Camera Model: Canon EOS 30D
Date/Time: 2010:11:19 17:08:14
Shutter speed: 1/800 sec
Aperture: 5.6
Exposure mode: Manual
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Spot
ISO: 800
Lens: EF500mm f/4L IS USM +1.4x
Focal length: 700mm
Last edited by Christopher Marek; 12-02-2010 at 08:31 AM. Reason: better title
The silhouette works well, and all 3 birds have good wing positions. I like that you can see through the hole in the bill of each bird. I'd like a bit more canvas on the right, and in an ideal world, the leading bird would have slightly better separation from the other two.
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Christopher, good wing positions from all three, and I like the colourful sky BG. I would maybe run another round of NR on the BG.
Great getting all three with their wings up or down. Agree with Doug that separation between first and second bird is a bit slim. I am wondering actually if the image would improve by taking out the middle bird completely... Great background too and you could make the silhouettes a bit blacker. JR
Nice silhouette flight shot Chris, love the layered sky background. Also agree with NR on background and darker silhouettes.
Christopher, as others have siad, terrific wing positions and DOF to get all three sharp. They are perfectly parallel too. I think this can be improved quite a bit by some extra processing...darkening the birds and lightening the Bg and tad more color sat.
I have tried to do everything everyone has said to do. I was able to add more canvas to the right. I was able to separate the leading bird further to the right. I was not able to lighten the bg and darken the birds without losing the 'see through' nostril that both Doug and I like. I also was having trouble with the gap of light that is seen between the legs of the birds also being lost by my manipulations. My attempts at pumping up the color looked like I was creating a cartoon, so I gave up on that. I hope I have not introduced any tell tale manipulation artifacts?
I was concerned about the horizon because a freind of mine who is a great photographer (but who does not do nature photos) did not like it. He said he did not know what it was and that I should get rid of it. Now that I have stretched the photo, I fear he may be right about it looking odd.
Thanks to everyone for their sugestions.
Thanks to everyone for their sugestions!
I think the repost is an incredible improvement especially regarding the seperation between the first two birds. How did you do it? Congrats, JR
Repost looks good!
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Agree. repost is much better.
Because you did a paste of the copy, you can use the MOVE tool to scoot the pasted piece over into the canvas you added in the first step. You get this result. Now you can use the PATCH tool to select the left over crane head and feet, and remove them just as you would if you were doing spot removal clean up.