THEME: Straight Down The Barrel - Eagle

[Jay Gould]

Hi, In Bariloche AR there is a place you can go to photograph the Condors right in the middle of their nests. Actually, you are on a mountain top and the nests are in the walls surrounding where you are standing. This shows where I was standing when I shot this image and the condors that I hope to post: http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...085#post650085

Occasionally, small eagles (I was told they were eagles; I wasn't told the type) will land close to where I was standing.

Hope you enjoy this image:

Camera: 7D
Capture date/time: 14 Dec 09; 9:40am
Light condition: overcast; light grey skies
Lens: 300 f/2.8
Focal length: 600
Extender: 2X
Distance: 46m
Tube: none
Flash/Comp: no
ISO: 1600
Exp Prog: Tv
Speed: 1/000 sec
Aperture: f/5.6
Exp Comp: 0
Mode: Manual
Metering: Spot
WB: Auto
AF Drive: AI Servo
Tripod: HH
Filter: None
Crop: None

Processed in LR3 and CS5 - Pixel Genius Sharpening.

All C&Cs gratefully appreciated!

[Arthur Morris]

Beautiful bird and pose and I like the high key look. Still, it could use a bit more pop; best to add some Black to the Neutrals and the Blacks in Selective Color. Then a bit of sharpening for the face....

[Roger Clark]

Jay,
Wonderful image!! I agree with Artie, a little sharpening on the head would make the eyes pop more. I like the contrast as is but with Artie's suggestion, I would like to see the effect of an increase in contrast. Is this full frame?

Roger

[Jay Gould]

Jay,
Wonderful image!! I agree with Artie, a little sharpening on the head would make the eyes pop more. I like the contrast as is but with Artie's suggestion, I would like to see the effect of an increase in contrast. Is this full frame?

Roger

Yes, no crop of the 1.6 cropped sensor.

Thank you both for your comments and acknowledgement.

Roger, as you wrote in your Lighting piece on your website, the hardest thing is not to shoot; when you have thousands of images from a trip the hardest thing is not to post anything but your best because you want to share the wonderful moments. I am going to be more selective on both accounts.

I will do further PP and repost.

[Troy Lim]

Really like the high key look and the shot. Just not crazy about the noise.

[Stu Bowie]

Jay, good eye contact, and just love the full wingspread. The high key works well. Well captured.

[Jay Gould]

Well, you sent me back to the drawing board. I did what I should have done in the first place; I went to the net, found images of what I think is close to the bird, and reprocessed.

BTW, it is a hawk; not an eagle!

The OP is too orange; so I reprocessed to try and get closer to the original which is basically in the browns and tans and very light creams.

Roger, this is cropped about 10%.

I reprocessed the entire image; thanks Artie for the suggestions.

And, a big Thank You to Robert Amorusu for the Image Contract and Tonal Range Tweaks tutorial, another big Thank You to Robert O'Toole for his APTATS I & II (selective sharpening for dummies is just one of many tutorials - if you don't have it; get it!!).

So, here is RP1, having been sized in CS5 using save for web.

The difference between what I have in CS5 before sizing, and what I am posting is night and day.

RP2 below is created by using SnagIt to capture the image from CS5 desktop, and saving in the program as a jpg.

How do you avoid the color shift when you use CS5 and size for web?

[Jay Gould]

This is RP2; much closer to what I remember seeing. How do you prevent the shift into orange?

[Roger Clark]

Yes, no crop of the 1.6 cropped sensor.

Jay,
Very well done. It is not easy to get BIF that large and not crop, at least it is tough for me.

Roger, as you wrote in your Lighting piece on your website, the hardest thing is not to shoot; when you have thousands of images from a trip the hardest thing is not to post anything but your best because you want to share the wonderful moments. I am going to be more selective on both accounts.

I agree, it is hard not to shoot. It is another thing to learn. Many of the images I post on BPN, I'm interested in people's reaction on an image I am uncertain about all the elements on how people will react. But each group has its biases.

Roger

[Roger Clark]

This is RP2; much closer to what I remember seeing. How do you prevent the shift into orange?

Jay, unless you used a flash, the underside of the bird is illuminates byt light reflected from the ground. If there was a lot of soil exposed, the bird would appear redder/oranger than normal.

If you have a color to start with and you change contrast, the color gets stronger. It is common for a scene such this to shift color more to the yellow/orange/red with a contrast increase (e.g. with the curves tool or other contrast tool). The way I prevent it is to convert my (16-bit) image to LAB mode and work on the luminance channel. Work on the luminance channel works better for unsharp mask or smart sharpen as sharpen can cause color shifts too. Working on the luminance channel prevents that.

Roger

[Arthur Morris]

In the repost you have lost a ton of detail, SH, and image quality on the face and head. Did you start from scratch or did you work from a JPEG?

[Jay Gould]

In the repost you have lost a ton of detail, SH, and image quality on the face and head. Did you start from scratch or did you work from a JPEG?

Artie, this is a strange one.

When I posted the OP, I had two images in my LR folder: the OP and an unprocessed RAW of the OP.

For the life of me I cannot find the processed image in tiff or psd of the OP; only the dng.

The two RPs are attempts to recreate the OP from the unprocessed RAW and to address your suggestions for having more POP.

I agree and do not like the RPs as much as the OP; I will keep working with the unprocessed RAW to again create an image with the detail of the OP.

In the meantime, this has been a great learning experience as I have reread and relearned the various tutorials mentioned earlier by the "Roberts".

Back to the drawing board.