JUVENILE MEADOWLARK

[gary ellwein]

Clear, midafternnon, Nikon D200, Nikkor 600mm, 1.4TC, iso 200, beanbag on truck door. PS levels and usm with minor crop. The golden bg is a recently harvested grain field. C & C appreciated.

[John Chardine]

Really cute little guy Gary. I assume Western Meadowlark in your neck of the woods? Love the look of the image. Head angle is great as is the background. I like the weathered fencepost perch. The feathers are shown off really well but I am wondering why they have a painterly look? Nothing in your post-processing suggests a cause but there is a look of noise reduction. Maybe it's just that the feathers are in front of the focus point and slightly blurry. I would love to know how to duplicate this effect!

[Jeff Cashdollar]

I am on work monitor, really like the pose and feeling of this picture. I can never get close enough to these guys with my 500 and see the value of a 600 +1.4,..nice kit. Image is tilted a bit but this could be the composition. I might level it and take a tad off the bottom (not too much love the look of the perch). All subjective stuff, this is real nice Gary. What a beautiful bird and splendid background. Just curious, what were exposure techs.

[gary ellwein]

John and Jeff, thanks for C & C. I was not very detailed concerning post processing in my original post. I was shooting matrix with aperature priority and no ev. on a clear sunny day. The original image was under exposed by about 1.3 stops. The grain field must have acted like snow. I fixed the under exposure in ACR. This made the bg too bright. Using a mask with levels, the bg was darkened and the bird selectively touched up by varying the opacity. Arthur Morris in his Digital Basics PDF suggests a contrast mask using usm with settings 15/65/0. After reducing the images size it was sharpened in usm 125/0.2/0 x 3 ( picked up from AM's Digital Basics PDF). Jeff I do not like the post either ( better than a metal one). I also have trouble getting these guys in range.

Gary

[John Chardine]

Hi Gary- One thing you could have done is adjust the exposure slider to bring the BG down and the Fill light slider to bring the subject up. The same thing can be done in ACR Curves but I find the sliders very convenient and a heck of a lot simpler than what you did. Give it a try. I'd be interested to see of the body feathers looked the same as the OP.

[Gordon McKechnie]

Love this image. BG to die for, and bird has lovely detail, exposure & pose. Congratulations!

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Gary, you sharpened this image three times, wow,. you did follow the book. But the 125/.02/0 is a nice sharp layer not too overpowering. I use Digital Basics as well for the most part. Was the mid-afternoon sun real bright. My guess, hard to protect the white highlights in afternoon sun on a clear day - hence the underexposure. Anyway, love the bird, hopefully you can get some more of this species.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Gary, I like the contemplative look and the pose and background are wonderful.

[Kerry Perkins]

Gary, first a word about exposure. The background level in this image is around 75% on average. Your camera's meter is calibrated to 18% gray. With no exposure compensation you will get what you got. You could use a curves or levels adjustment to bring down the overall midtones, which can lower the bg level significantly. Nice pose and capture, I think just a little more sharpening would bring out more feather detail. Love the splash of yellow!

[Susan Candelario]

Gary,
I like the pose & the clean oof b/g.

Sent from my iPad using Forum Runner

[gary ellwein]

Thanks to all for the critiques.

Gary