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Thread: Sunset Yoga

  1. #1
    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    Default Sunset Yoga

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    Last week at Chincoteague, captured this Tundra Swan stretching just minutes before the sun hit the horizon. Cropped tightly and cloned a bit to eliminate two adjacent sleeping swans; levels; USM. C&C appreciated.

    D90 | 500VR | ISO 640 | 1/800s @ f/9 | -0.3 EV | monopod

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    Avian Moderator Randy Stout's Avatar
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    Bill:

    Very appropriate title here, looks perfectly balanced.

    Soft, evening light very nice.

    Wish the water was a bit cleaner. I might do some gentle cloning of some of the fine debris in the more open water, where it has the highest contrast.

    It looks like a few cloning artifacts on the right side above his foot, and also just to the right of the foot.

    If time allowed, I might have been tempted to use a larger f/stop to reduce your DOF even further, and if possible, a lower shooting angle would have helped smooth the background a bit too.

    cheers

    Randy

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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    Thanks Randy. I thought about cloning out some debris but I didn't know where to start. It might be worth cleaning it up a bit. I didn't do any cloning in the areas you mentioned; those must be reflections in the water. The only cloning was a small area in the LLH corner.

    Good point about the f-stop. I noticed that as I looked at the EXIF. I believe I must have still had the camera set for the previous image where I was trying to get all three swans together. Lower shooting angle was not possible here, but lower f-stop certainly would have been.

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    Avian Moderator Randy Stout's Avatar
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    Bill:

    Sorry for the miscall on the cloning, but it sure did look a bit odd in those areas:)

    One of the challenges of bird photography is always trying to do different settings. I suspect you only had a few seconds with this pose, but I try to click off a few and then change a setting, often the aperture. It isn't easy, cause most of us think we will get more keepers if we just keep taking the same shot over and over, but it is good practice to shot a few, and change!

    Randy

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    Bill, loved the pose and the light. good points by Randy.

    For such a tall bird, eye-level shooting angle will also catch a lot of BG that is close to the bird. Pity you could not go down further. I run into this situation when I shoot Pelicans from a fishing pier. I tell myself....hey, at least the bird is tall enough for an eye-level shot. for smaller birds, this shooting angle would be a no-no.

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    BPN Member Alan Murphy's Avatar
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    Very nice Bill. It could go brighter IMO.

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    Lifetime Member James Salywoda's Avatar
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    Nice wing stretch captured Bill the lighting is superb. Great Shot!

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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    Thank you all for the most helpful comments. I'm a little slow getting back to this one, but I've taken the comments to heart and attempted a repost. I've cleaned up some of the offending debris in the water, selectively applied a surface blur on the bg to simulate a wider aperture, and lightened the image slightly. If anyone's still looking at this one, please let me know if this is an improvement.

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    Avian Moderator Randy Stout's Avatar
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    Bill:

    I think it is a significant improvement. Much less distracting to look at.

    Cheers

    Randy

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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Randy Stout View Post
    Bill:

    I think it is a significant improvement. Much less distracting to look at.

    Cheers

    Randy
    Thanks Randy. I appreciate your help.

  11. #11
    ChasMcRae
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    Actually I liked both because of the soft lighting showing feather detail on the bird,but the 2nd image is much cleaner and pleasing.

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