From the boat ride with Kristen on Lake Pleasant, just north of Phoenix. There was a surprising amount of wildlife in what seemed to be a barren landscape.
Specific Feedback Requested
All comments welcome!
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Canon R5, 100-500 + 1.4X at 700. ISO 1000, f/10, 1/2500 sec. Handheld in an often-rocking boat. Just basic LR adjustments here, nothing heroic. No NR or sharpening. This one didn’t need to go into PS. Cropped to 24% of the original frame.
A beauty!! What a patient bird that was. Amazing. I’m still playing with mine. If you feel up to heroics, maybe a touch contrast and clone out the branch behind. And oh boy was the boat rocking sometimes.
I agree, @Kris_Smith, I think the colors are very flat more than the tonal contrast – I’ll work on it. I thought the OOF branch would balance things a bit but it may be too distracting.
Thanks @Kris_Smith, @terryb and @Dennis_Plank! I did feel if was under-saturated but didn’t boost it as the camera was on daylight WB and it was a sunny day, albeit with some very thin high clouds. But it does look better with some color punch. And I removed the OOF limb, and another one in the LL corner, for comparison. Maybe still not enough saturation?
I think that looks about right. You could selectively saturate the bird’s head a bit, but it’s a nice improvement. Am reviewing a masking video in hopes that I can get one of my heron take off shots done the way I want it. In the meantime I’ll put up one that didn’t need much work. It was a nice day for birds!
Excellent detail and pose with appropriate head turn. I agree that you could probably increase the contrast and in so doing, improve the plumage detail. I think your sky background works quite well with the colors of the bird.
Thanks everyone! The two branches being of almost equal length was bothering me so I decided to see if I could successfully shorten the top one. I could! Also added more saturation as per @Kris_Smith and @David_Schoen. Posted with the originals.
