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Thread: Orchard Oriole

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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    Default Orchard Oriole

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    Went to the grasslands again on Monday evening in search of Blue-winged Warblers, and again they failed to materialize. On the way back to the car two male Orchard Orioles were playing tag in the middle of the large field, and this one was kind enough to pose for a second. I wish he had been closer, but still, I'm pleased to have gotten my first capture of an adult male Orchard, even if he wasn't my target bird for the day. Cloned out one sprig of rose bush, adj. levels, crop and USM.

    D7000 | 500f4 + 1.4 TX | ISO 800 | 1/1000s @ f/7.1 | 0EV | monopod

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    Bil, I love the image design, the base of the perch seems odd. I love the pose, might tone down the snack. Awesome capture and congrats on a fine image!!

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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by denise ippolito View Post
    Bil, I love the image design, the base of the perch seems odd. I love the pose, might tone down the snack. Awesome capture and congrats on a fine image!!
    Thank you Denise. Yes, there were some oof foreground grasses in the LLC that I wish hadn't been there. During PP I toned down the 'snack' to get it in the low 240's, but it now looks as if parts of it are in the 250's, maybe due to sharpening the jpeg for posting. I'll take it down another notch. I appreciate the comments.

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    BPN Member Bill Jobes's Avatar
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    Outstanding capture, Bill !

    Agree the LLC blur would be nice if it weren't there.

    I'm wondering what that 'snack' is, as it doesn't seem to have come from the berry branch the bird's occupying.
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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Jobes View Post
    Outstanding capture, Bill !

    Agree the LLC blur would be nice if it weren't there.

    I'm wondering what that 'snack' is, as it doesn't seem to have come from the berry branch the bird's occupying.
    Hi Bill. I also wondered about the snack. It has some texture to it, so I'm guessing it must be some sort of cocoon, or maybe a spider egg casing. Maybe someone can identify it. Whatever it is, he seemed determined to keep the other male Oriole from getting it. Thanks for the comments.

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    Bill, loved the pose and the composition. great blacks. IQ looks very good. clean BG and eye level....not easy to achieve without setups. very well done.

    If anything, I might move the bird-perch a little up in the frame...if u have room below in orig and there isn't anything distracting down there.

    sharpening will do that as it increases microcontrast. If there are bright areas that sharpening is not going to achieve much on, I exclude them from my selection.

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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kaustubh Deshpande View Post
    Bill, loved the pose and the composition. great blacks. IQ looks very good. clean BG and eye level....not easy to achieve without setups. very well done.

    If anything, I might move the bird-perch a little up in the frame...if u have room below in orig and there isn't anything distracting down there.

    sharpening will do that as it increases microcontrast. If there are bright areas that sharpening is not going to achieve much on, I exclude them from my selection.
    Thanks Kaustubh. I would have liked to have the bird and perch a little higher; unfortunately that would exacerbate the problem of the oof grasses that were in the foreground. Perhaps taking a bit off the top might help?

    What I often do with bright areas of an image is to sharpen the whole bird, and then use the eraser on the sharpen layer to fix the over-brightened areas, such as white edges on primaries. I failed to do that on the 'snack'. As you suggest, excluding them from the selection would serve the same purpose.

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    I would have liked to have the bird and perch a little higher; unfortunately that would exacerbate the problem of the oof grasses that were in the foreground.

    Crop a little off the top. That will balance the image out as if the perch had been higher.

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    Bill, great work on exposing the blacks on this fellow, and I like the angled pose. The oriole is nice and sharp, and his food item a bonus. Cropping slightly up from the bottom will rid you of most of the OOF FG in the LLC. Congrats on your first of this species.

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    Like the BG and exp...IQ on the bird is not great (lacks fine detail) food is a bit bright. Also PP on the tail and eye is a bit ff. Eye looks like its been doctored...TFS Bill

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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dumay Boulle View Post
    Like the BG and exp...IQ on the bird is not great (lacks fine detail) food is a bit bright. Also PP on the tail and eye is a bit ff. Eye looks like its been doctored...TFS Bill
    Dumay, I certainly agree about the IQ. As I said, the bird was in the middle of a large field, so this was a large crop (as posted it's 42% of FF) - much more than I like to crop. I did brighten the iris a bit, and may have slightly oversharpened around the eye. I'm not sure what you're seeing in the tail other than that it's slightly OOF. Thanks for commenting.

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    Nice image Bill! I would like to see a recrop using Kaustubh suggestions.

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    OK, biologist steps in- the "snack" is a faecal sack from one of this bird's chicks. So it isn't a snack! Landbird chicks produce their "pee and poo" in a tidy sack that doesn't foul the nest. As it comes out, the parent is there to grab it, remove it from the nest and drop it some distance away. So there you have it- an Orchard Oriole breeding not too far away from where the image was made.

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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by John Chardine View Post
    OK, biologist steps in- the "snack" is a faecal sack from one of this bird's chicks. So it isn't a snack! Landbird chicks produce their "pee and poo" in a tidy sack that doesn't foul the nest. As it comes out, the parent is there to grab it, remove it from the nest and drop it some distance away. So there you have it- an Orchard Oriole breeding not too far away from where the image was made.
    Thank you, biologist sir. I was hoping you'd chime in. That's very interesting. Thanks for the edification.

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    Quote Originally Posted by John Chardine View Post
    OK, biologist steps in- the "snack" is a faecal sack from one of this bird's chicks. So it isn't a snack! Landbird chicks produce their "pee and poo" in a tidy sack that doesn't foul the nest. As it comes out, the parent is there to grab it, remove it from the nest and drop it some distance away. So there you have it- an Orchard Oriole breeding not too far away from where the image was made.
    That is incredible to hear. Thanks John for that info. I had no idea what it was. John, Landbirds include Birds of prey also- right? Does that mean that Owls and Eagles do this similar behavior? Sorry for all the questions but this is fascinating to me.
    This makes Bill's image even more interesting.

  16. #16
    Ofer Levy
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    Excellent image! Would crop of the top in order to move the eye off centre.

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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    Thank you all for the kind and helpful comments, and John, for the biology lesson. I've taken off about half of the negative space at top, toned down the brightness of the faecal sack and the strip along the edge of the tail. (Did this on the jpeg for expediency; will fix the master file.) Certainly some more space at the bottom would have been good, if it were possible without making the rose bush seem to float in mid-air even more than it does now. Your collective help is always greatly appreciated.

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