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Archive 2014 · Cormorant BIF in Mist

  
 
Lauchlan Toal
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Cormorant BIF in Mist


Hey guys, here's a BIF shot I did earlier this week which I'd love to hear your advice on.


cormorant by LukeClarenceVan, on Flickr

300mm
1/400s
f/8
ISO 640

It was an overcast, misty day with plenty of sea spray, so light was limited and haze was plentiful. Even though I got as close as I could by lying down on a rock outcropping, there was still a lot of mist between me and the bird. I upped the contrast and clarity of this quite a bit, but there's still a haziness to the bird which I can't get rid off. Further adjustments to the ACR sliders just add noise. Tips on post-processing these kinds of images would be awesome.

As well as editing advice, feel free to critique the composition, colours, etc. Anything helps.

Thanks all!



Sep 06, 2014 at 12:30 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Cormorant BIF in Mist


These guys are hard to shoot. I would like a tighter crop and a bit more contrast. Maybe leave just a bit of land for context.


Sep 06, 2014 at 01:27 PM
Shasoc
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Cormorant BIF in Mist


As you know any picture is as good as the light you have. Not the best situation to shoot wildlife and you never can be close enough to get your shot.
Anyway, there are many different ways to increase the contrast in a picture, curves being one. A cool way to do that is to use Unsharp Mask with a low amount (~20%) and high radius (~50) Threshold 0. I did a mix of both.
Color were enhanced using Curves. These are natural color, colors that are actually extent inside your image. Looked like there was a bit of magenta cast in the original.
No much you can do whith this image. Here is my attempt.
Socrate







Sep 06, 2014 at 02:18 PM
Oregon Gal
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Cormorant BIF in Mist


I like the square crop but would be curious if adding more room on the right may be beneficial. My inclination would be to add slightly more contrast and sharpening on the Cormorant only. I do like the inclusion of the shoreline and overall placement of the bird within the shoreline.


Sep 06, 2014 at 02:23 PM
andrewsk
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Cormorant BIF in Mist


Ill echo Shasoc. The light is poor and evokes no mood for me. His crop is good but there is not much more that can be done here I think.

Next time, perhaps a longer lens. Leave out the background unless it is visually appealing and adds to the story.

If you post a bigger version perhaps we could crop in more?

The top of the wings are blurred. Is that intentional to show movement?



Sep 06, 2014 at 02:36 PM
Lauchlan Toal
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Cormorant BIF in Mist


ben egbert wrote:
These guys are hard to shoot. I would like a tighter crop and a bit more contrast. Maybe leave just a bit of land for context.


Yeah, I was torn between cutting off too much land versus having the bird too far away. I opted for a more environmental shot, but a closer crop would definitely help highlight the cormorant. Thanks for your input!

---------------------------------------------

Shasoc wrote:
As you know any picture is as good as the light you have. Not the best situation to shoot wildlife and you never can be close enough to get your shot.
Anyway, there are many different ways to increase the contrast in a picture, curves being one. A cool way to do that is to use Unsharp Mask with a low amount (~20%) and high radius (~50) Threshold 0. I did a mix of both.
Color were enhanced using Curves. These are natural color, colors that are actually extent inside your image. Looked like there was a bit of magenta cast in
...Show more

Thanks Shasoc, I appreciate the advice and example! I'm currently using PSE11, but I'll keep these settings in mind for when I switch to CC later this year. Did you identify the colour cast by fully saturating the image, fixing the cast, then desaturating it?

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Oregon Gal wrote:
I like the square crop but would be curious if adding more room on the right may be beneficial. My inclination would be to add slightly more contrast and sharpening on the Cormorant only. I do like the inclusion of the shoreline and overall placement of the bird within the shoreline.


Thanks, I tried a 2x3 and 5x7 ratio with more space, but I found that the photo lost it's visual balance a bit. At least, in my opinion. The rocks just became a bit too dominant. I'll play around with spot adjustments on the cormorant, cheers!

---------------------------------------------

andrewsk wrote:
Ill echo Shasoc. The light is poor and evokes no mood for me. His crop is good but there is not much more that can be done here I think.

Next time, perhaps a longer lens. Leave out the background unless it is visually appealing and adds to the story.

If you post a bigger version perhaps we could crop in more?

The top of the wings are blurred. Is that intentional to show movement?


I'm hoping to have a 120-300 with tcs for next year, which should get me much better reach and IQ for cropping. But yeah, the lighting was pretty contrastless due to the heavy mist. There's not a whole lot more cropping I can do since at ISO 640 there's a lot of lost detail, and the 55-300 is pretty soft... Though I might be able to scrape out a bit more. As for the wings, I was just shooting relatively slow seals and then caught this guy out of the corner of my eye and shot without having time to adjust settings. I'm not sure that I could have afforded to up the shutterspeed though, as opening the aperture ruins sharpness/AF, and the ISO's already pretty high. With a faster lens / better body that would definitely have been ideal though. I appreciate your advice!



Sep 06, 2014 at 09:35 PM
Shasoc
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Cormorant BIF in Mist


Did you identify the colour cast by fully saturating the image, fixing the cast, then desaturating it?

No, I noticed the magenta cast on the bird by looking at it. I shoot a lot of these birds and I know their color which is pretty neutral. I checked the color on top of the wings and the Red and Blue channel value were way up compared to Green, (all three values should have been pretty close, if not equal) Red and Blue generates a magenta cast, so I reduced their values in curves. You can do a better job on the original file, especially if you can identify also a neutral highlight.
Socrate



Sep 06, 2014 at 10:21 PM





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