Lurker looking for comments: GBH, shorebirds, 'shroom

troutstreaming

Hi all,

I have been playing around with birding with my 20d 70-200 IS w/ a 1.4 teleconverter and am now trying to teach myself post-processing. The following images have been cropped, color corrected/enhanced and sharpened in Photoshop starting with RAW files.

Images were taken over Thanksgiving weekend at Seaside Oregon on Pacific beaches or in salt marshes. Familial obligations controlled the timing, so light was not optimal (too bright or too rainy), so color issues/challenges were related to too much contrast or not enough in the original RAW files. All were handheld and most would have benefitted greatly from a supertele... The gratuitous 'shroom photo was taken w/ a 100 2.8 macro.













Thank you in advance for looking! Full gallery is at http://troutstreaming.smugmug.com/gallery/1024327/1/47489360

Andy

Rohirrim

Very nice series Andy. As you asked for comments these are my thoughts.

The Heron- Lovely capture of his pose, nice detail and color. I would have cropped him a little lower in the frame so there would be less tree stump and have the bird a little below center.

The next two are nice shots. I'd prefer to see the birds off center a bit and if possible get that "Catch Light" in their eyes.

The Terns (at least I think their Terns??)- This is my favorite. Nice job.

The Cormorant- I'd crop him with more frame in front of him than behind.

The mushroom- Nice colors, I might put it a little lower in the frame and it looks a tad overexposed or maybe too saturated (at least on my monitor)

And

Welcome to Digitial Grin

Thanks for sharing your shots,

troutstreaming

Thank you for the kind feedback and suggestions!

The mushroom was a touch overexposed by the flash and is likely oversaturated as well in post-processing. My monitors are both long in the tooth and while both are color corrected, I do not have a good feeling for just how 'correct' they are. I was trying to push the tonalities there as much as I could because this thing stood out so vividly on the forest floor, so likely overshot reality by more than I thought. This is a more staid rendition (different angle, aperature, and PP), but on my monitor it just does not have enough zing and I am not sure just what LAB or RGB numbers to look for for 'psychodelic mushroom orange/red' to do it analytically.


With the merganser, I went back and forth with giving it space to fly versus emphasizing the breaking wave behind it. If I move away from standard crop ratios, I could accomplish both and will need to add non-standard cropping to the list of variables to ponder going forward. As most images posted appear to be sticking to standard crop ratios, just how far can out can I routinely custom crop? I think that I would need at least 2x5 on the merganser to give some flying room and still maintain any emphasis on the breaking wave.

Thank you again for the comments,

Andy

Osprey Whisperer

Welcome to Dgrin, Andy. Nice series of shots. I agree with what Steve suggested. I like to have birds looking / flying into open space. I don't like cropping where the birds beak is almost touching the edge of the frame..or oposite of center towards the looking side. I like to leave as much room as possible (within good comp.) for a fast flying bird to fly into. Yes..sometimes difficult with these suckers. Longer glass is always wanted and loved for birders. I'm in need of more "power" .


Regarding PP work. It's difficult to say..as there are so many variables. (monitors, settings, eyes, equipment yada yada yada). They look pretty good to me. (colorblind guy to boot). The main issues (and small ones) is your cropping/composition. If you are going to crop...make it a good one.

Nice job again. Look forward to seing more shots of yours.