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Satin Bowerbird
Portrait of an immature male Satin Bowerbird showing off his remarkable violet/blue eye colour (birds of both sexes have eyes this colour). His bill was open as it was a hot day. I'm fortunate to have these birds behind my back fence where they build a bower each year and provide us with hours of entertainment as they vocalise and dance around the bower. There is also endless amounts of rivalry from other bowerbirds in the area resulting in frequent bower destruction and theft of bower decorations. The birds are fairly used to us so I can get quite close but this still represents a crop of just under 20% of the frame.
Technical details: Canon 80D with EF 100-400 (MkII) at 400mm handheld against garden bench. Manual exposure 1/160 sec, f7.1, ISO 1600. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser, crop, lighting adjustments, default NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements with Neat Image NR plugin. Very light NR applied to bird and stronger NR to background. Lighten shadows on bird's eye. Sharpened after size reduction (bird only).
Thank you for looking...
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I think this is just wonderful. You are lucky to have these birds so close. and the crop treatment seems to be perfect. Some eye!
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Beautiful detail on the bird and sharpness looks good to me. A very pleasing image.
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BPN Member
Glenn, insane eye color, nice crop, but for me to over sharpened, looks crunchy IMO.
-Tim
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Lifetime Member
For me, the only slight distraction is the OOF element shooting out of the LLC.
There are two reasons for that:
1) You may have been slightly angled downwards, in which case the BG was too close to the bird, because of the angle of view (not ideal for a smooth BG).
2) Your BG was too close to the bird.
A couple of ways you could fix this:
1) Lay flat (or as close to eye level as you can) and make sure the BG is as far away from the bird as possible. With a super telephoto around 10 meters should suffice.
2) Selectively darken the OOF vegetation to not make it so obvious.
3) Try to compose the image in the camera (personally this is my - and perhaps most people's preferred method), as it makes for less time spent post processing. You could move the lens slightly to not include such distracting elements if you possibly can. Sometimes it can be all too exciting to be immersed in the moment and not pay attention to the little details.
On a very positive note, I love the eye colour and the detail in the plumage. The composition is very good as well. It is a very nice portrait. It can be a great portrait with a little more care with the composition.
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Thank you Ian, Tim, Gerhard and Akos.
For Tim, I was thinking of putting a comment about sharpening in the OP so you fell into my 'trap'! Only kidding... I've actually applied less sharpening to this shot than I usually would - even then I usually only sharpen modestly and never with USM but with the 'Sharpness' function in DPP (at setting 3) and Photoshop Elements - in the latter case only after final size reduction. I have had other comments about this shot looking overly sharp. It is how the bird actually looks. It does create a dilemma for me though in wondering if I should actually de-sharpen this shot to make it look like I haven't over-worked it. I guess I'll have to live with that.
Akos, thanks for your detailed suggestions. I agree the light blurry twig on the left is a little distracting and your suggestions are sensible although I won't repost just yet. But a few observations again - you may be familiar with this species and its bowers which are usually built under or near foliage and bushes, not usually in an open spot. Hence, getting a clear background is near impossible and the background is usually not far behind the subject. This was about the best achievable in the situation but accept that moving a little from where I was could have helped - I do get lost in the moment as you say. In this case, the a lower POV wouldn't have helped because of the proximity of the background - in fact I was surprised it didn't look worse than it does.
Thanks for looking.
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Hi Glen, wild eye... never imagined a bird would have an eye that color. I cannot comment on the sharpening as I am not familiar with the bird. The out of focus branches could easily be smoothed out in Photoshop. Thank you for sharing.
Joe Przybyla
"Sometimes I do get to places just as God is ready to have somebody click the shutter"... Ansel Adams
www.amazinglight.smugmug.com
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Lifetime Member
I know the species well, and you are of course, correct about where the bowers are etc. Not an easy species to get in a clean position. You could set-up a perch nearby with a better BG and use some blueberries and cut grapes to attract the birds to the perch. :)
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Thanks again Akos. For ethical reasons, I never use feed or attractants. I also like seeing the birds around the bower and am happy to wear some busy backgrounds as a result. Of course, not everyone will like that and am still grateful for your suggestions and thoughts.
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Wow Glenn. I know the feeling when you see an image like this on our computer. Beautiful bird and matching capture.