Osprey

[Richard Mc Donald]

After my poor attemp at this Osprey (thanks John for the wake up call with your "paint by numbers" comment") my first post processing move was to drop the default saturation to 0, down from 25, in Adobe Raw converter and took it from there.

Every frame I took of the raptor was heavily saturated straight out of camera so I put it down to the harsh lighting here in the Northern part of Australia.

Not sure if the frame is too pretentious but feel free to hammer me.


Canon 1D MKIV
800L F/5.6
f/5.6
1/2500
ISO 200
Subject Distance : 58.5m
33% crop

Richard

(cross posted)

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Richard,

First of all I want to complement your eye and field planning. You seem to find great positions and know where the action is. Regarding cross posting. Unless they have changed the rules we tend to like images posted to a single forum. I could be wrong about this, will let Kerry chime in here as well. The picture has a good fell, simple elements and tells a great story. A story of the beauty and strength of nature - what a great moment to witness. the opportunity to make the picture stronger is about light. Shadows under wings, eye area and on the body creates a sense of mixed light. Shooting the light is always important, we do the best we can. A tad tight for me in URHC as well. Saturation is a style and balance. Some like to hot some not. I do not see any issues here. Keep em coming, I love the regal BIF position, thanks for sharing.

[Gordon McKechnie]

I agree with Jeff that this has a lot of very strong aspects to like, and it's mainly the lighting that could make these even stronger. Small preference to also have the HA a bit more towards the camera

Regarding the frame, my vote is no thanks. Purely because with the restriction of pixel size for posts, I'd much rather all the available pixels were used to show detail of the picture.

[Marina Scarr]

You have a wonderful capture here. I really like the take off pose. I have done a quick repost. I did a linear curve adj, added some saturation, esp yellow and red for the browns in the osprey and sharpened it a little more. I think it gives an already good picture just a little more pop.

Marina Scarr
www.marinascarrphotography.com

[Ronald Zigler]

Great picture. I'd be curious to learn how long you were stalking Ospreys (on the day of this capture) before you captured this particular image.

[Richard Mc Donald]

No offence meant Marina - I think the Osprey now looks overworked other than the sharpening (somewhere half way in between the original and the adjusted would be better) appreciated your time though and thanks.

Ronald, didn't actually "stalk" the Osprey, I was sitting in the shade of a Malaluka tree daydreaming and didn't even notice it until I got up to move to a different part of the billabong. Rough guess is that it perched in the tree for ten minutes. It's not common to see them in this particular area but because there's a few nests around my part of the world they aren't overly worried about human presence.

Richard

[Marina Scarr]

No offence meant Marina - I think the Osprey now looks overworked other than the sharpening (somewhere half way in between the original and the adjusted would be better) appreciated your time though and thanks.

Richard

No offense ever taken, Richard. We all normally see things a bit differently and have different views which is one of the reasons I enjoy BPN.

[Kerry Perkins]

Richard, I think you went too far with adjusting the saturation - 25 to 0 is a big change and every image has its own unique requirements. To my eye, your image looks flat and under-saturated. I disagree with your assessment of Marina's repost, to my eye it look much more vibrant and realistic. The harsh lighting conditions and angle of the sun made for large areas of shadow on the bird, especially the partially raised near wing. Curious to know if you used any noise reduction on the background. I'm seeing some color banding there. The frame doesn't bother me except that it takes up valuable real estate on the screen that could be used to make the image larger and more detailed.

Please don't cross post. I don't see where you posted this image other than in this forum, but when we find duplicate images in other forums we will delete one of them.

[Richard Mc Donald]

Thanks Kerry, I should have stated that the image was cross posted in another forum outside of this one.

Regarding the saturation - I took it down fron 25 to 0 THEN upped it to around 15 if my memory serves me correctly and in reference to the adjusted image, even though I will agree Marina's image is better that my effort the colours are not correct for the Ospreys in this area.

By the way Marina, that's one **** of a nice Web site you own, some fantatic shots, how much time per month would you spend in the field?

Richard

[Marina Scarr]

By the way Marina, that's one **** of a nice Web site you own, some fantatic shots, how much time per month would you spend in the field?

Richard

Glad you like my website, Richard. I didn't build my own website, but it sure took a lot of work on my part. I am pretty happy with the finished product and feel that now it was worth all the work. Wasn't so sure during the process itself.

I would say during the season, I spend an average of at least 25 hrs per WEEK in the field. That's why I am enjoying my down time so much right now. Doing other things like working out and getting all my processing done.

[Richard Mc Donald]

25 hours a week shows why you have such a large range of excellent shots.

Are you straying far from the sealed road? Odd question but I'm intrigued as to what lengths members here go to on a regular basis to get their keepers.

Another question if I may - I know it takes time to build up post processing skills so what would be your guestimation to get to where you are now?

Richard

[Marina Scarr]

25 hours a week shows why you have such a large range of excellent shots.

Are you straying far from the sealed road? Odd question but I'm intrigued as to what lengths members here go to on a regular basis to get their keepers.

Another question if I may - I know it takes time to build up post processing skills so what would be your guestimation to get to where you are now?

Richard

To capture many of my nesting photographs, I use a kayak or my waverunner to get out to the islands. The last 2 years, I have also set a goal to do more traveling and photograph more than just birds which has been a lot of fun.

Learning post processing can be very time consuming but well worth the effort, since I truly believe it's a big part of the job of the finished product. Once you get better at it, it can actually be fun as well. The best advice I can give it to find someone nearby who is a proficient nature photographer and post processor, and pay them to teach you their workflow and techniques. If that is not possible, buy Artie's CD and/or Ellen Anon's CS5 for Nature Photographers. Another option is to join www.lynda.com which is a great learning tool with videos for each lesson/tutorial. You may also find free tutorials here: http://tv.adobe.com/product/photoshop/. The more you practice, read and experiment, the more you can learn.

Good luck.