Flight of the Kingfisher
:p
On a warm late summer morning this Kingfisher stopped and hovered briefly in front of me; as it was fairly distant I have not attempted to excessively zoom in by cropping as I think the grass and seeds in the wind enhance the scene!
SS 1/640
ISO 400
f 5.6
FL 400 on my 100-400 and Canon 40D
:)
This one really works for me, and it's a nice composition. Possibly consider brightening the kingfisher itself a little.
wow! he looks like he is hovering like a hummingbird. agree with Geoff - would like to see a little more contrast between him and the background - beautiful colors.
Only complaint I have is that you waited so long to post. Lovely! I'd crop a bit closer maybe and indeed, make the bird stand out a touch more.
ThanksOriginally Posted by Jeroen Wijnands
Have lightened the scene a little and cropped in; appreciate comments
Rich:)
Very nice, Richard! These birds are so hard to capture successfully. Now that you've lightened the image I'd suggest going back and toning down the white spot on the bird and the white area in the center just a bit. I'd also raise your magnification up to 100% and really clean up any little white spots that appear on the image (like in the white area). If you have any more canvas to work with I'd drop the bird down just a bit and in to the frame (to the right) just a tiny bit more. He feels very close to the edge and that leaves me wondering if the reeds are the focal point instead of the bird.
Hi Julie
:p
BG is better in OP; need to selectively brighten bird as doing whole image caused xs white would you burn hese if so what settings?
Too the left on the OF there is a large scruffy reed so I cropped to avoid:)
thanks for cc
Hi Richard, I like your repost. You could try a linear burn on the bird's white patch (duplicate layer, linear burn blending mode, and mask all but the white patch), and I think just selecting the colour from the green background and painting over the large white area with a big soft brush at 10-20% opacity would help. Heard about both these techniques here on BPN. Linear burn from Artie I think and the painting in various posts.
Hi
After reading all the above great suggestions, I decided to go back to the master file, and do different flow.
No NR in CR5 just checked for blinkies; there were none but pulled the highlight slider back to tone down that troublesome white patch on Mr K.
In PS5 isolated bird with QM , ran NR on BG, Then SS bird only.
Cropped to show the original reed on the left, thus moving bird down and to centre a little.
Comments? :)
Richard, a very nice improvement! The position of the bird really made a huge difference!
The whites look better. Personally I don't like the left hand reed and would prefer less space on the left. A bit more than your original is good, but now it's too much for me. There also seems to be a bit of halo around the bird's body in this version. Easily fixed.
Is there a large spider's web between the reeds?
Hi Geoff
Ah well; Im undecided myself; but of course I treat as a learning exercise every time.
Actually I think there are seeds from the reeds blowing across so it looks as though they are suspended in something.
Last edited by Richard Unsworth; 12-07-2010 at 10:43 AM.
I entirely agree, sometimes it's very hard to decide on a crop!
Hi Richard,
beautiful image and great community involvement. I am learning much and it was so helpful to see how the image evolved and what happened along the way. Indeed Mr. K is a fast fellow and what a capture.
ann
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