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Thread: Ring Neck Pheasant ~ High Key

  1. #1
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    Default Ring Neck Pheasant ~ High Key

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    Before I describe this shot I'll answer the question....NO, I didn't remove the background in CS3 :)

    Last year on Easter Morning, I was driving through NH before sunrise to find someplace open to buy a coffee.

    I went past a field when it was just barely light enough to see and saw a pheasant in the distance. It was cold, I had no coat, hat or gloves and typically pheasant flee the minute they see me, so I smiled inside that I had seen it and drive on.

    Fifteen minutes later on my way back to my inlaws, I get to the field and the bird is still there, although a bit closer. The car thermometer reads 19 degrees, there's two feet of snow and like any good nature photographer, I stop, pull out the tripod with the D2Xs and 500 mounted and slowly work my way toward the bird...no hat, no coat and no gloves. I am instantly frozen and feeling stupid.

    Miraculously, I approach as low as I can without getting down into the snow and the bird remains calm. The sun hasn't yet crested the mountains to the east and the sky is a beautiful twilight sort of bluish color. The closer I get to this beauty, the less I acknowledge the cold.

    As the bird was back lit and I hadn't brought the flash, I had to really overexpose the overall scene in order to light the bird on it's shadow side somewhat properly. I obtained three images before this beautiful male retreated into the brush, with this particular one bing my favorite. If you look closely, you can make out the blue shadows cast by his underside with the light of pre dawn coming from the opposite direction.

    Nikon D2Xs, 500 AFSII, f 6.3 , 1/60, ISO 640, matrix metering with +2.3 EV compensation
    Last edited by Jim Fenton; 03-16-2008 at 05:58 AM.

  2. #2
    Forum Participant Manos Papadomanolakis's Avatar
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    Hi Jim,thanks for the story
    Great hi-key image,I Iike it a lot!

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    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    I absolutely love it. Wonderful effect and love the raised foot, the perfect EXP, and the COMP. It might present better with a thin black border (stroke). Do you know how to do that?

    later and love, artie
    BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.

    BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.

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    E-mail me at samandmayasgrandpa@att.net.










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    Default Good Morning Artie

    I don't know how to do the border, but I'll bet you that someone could point me toward a tutorial so that I could educate myself?

    You're up early :)

  5. #5
    Dave Phillips
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    I too like this one Jim, good that you stopped on second pass.
    The white balance is dead on.....nice.

    I add borders through image/canvas size......about 3 pixel would be nice here.

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    I like the image as well! nicely presented.

  7. #7
    Del Cockroft
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    Super image, Jim. Glad to see you posting again.

  8. #8
    Todd Frost
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    Nice work. Perfect example on how to take a difficult situation and turn it in to a thing of beauty.

    Todd

  9. #9
    Gary "Jake" Jacobson
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    What a great image. Your bravery in the cold was rewarded!

  10. #10
    Leroy Laverman
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    Really lovely image. An easy way to add a border is to add a 'stoke' using the layer style option. Click on "add layer style" icon on the bottom left of the layers pallet and select "stroke", Change the position to "inside" and the color and thickness to whatever suits. Here it is with a 1 pixel black boarder. I also pulled back the red saturation a tad as the bright red patch on his head was blown in the red channel.

  11. #11
    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    Thanks Leroy. You beat me to the punch! Looks even better, totally painterly.

    later and love, artie
    BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.

    BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.

    Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,

    E-mail me at samandmayasgrandpa@att.net.










  12. #12
    Gayle Clement
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    Wow! Such an unusual photo and that stroke puts it over the top.

  13. #13
    Anita Rakestraw
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    An absolutely gorgeous pheasant image, way to go!

  14. #14
    Lori A. Cash
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    Love it. Great job on capturing a beautiful image.

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