Thanks!
Thanks to Adam, Muhammad (Moe) Arif, and Cliff Beittel for their helpful comments at yesterday’s Lake Blue Cypress — It Ain’t Just Ospreys. Part I blog post here. I often learn a ton from the comments and that was the case yesterday.
Your Call?
After clicking on each to enlarge, which of today’s featured images do you like best? Why?
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What’s Up?
Today is Sunday 5 May. I got down to the lake early and everything was pretty much perfect: clear with gorgeous early light and a nice breeze from the east. Early on thing was pretty dead. My best chance was with a preening killdeer — 201 images with the a-1!. By 7:30am there was a bit more activity, but because of a lack of concentration by the operator, I missed two really good chances with the male Osprey perched above the old eagle nest.
When I find a cooperative perched Osprey, I’ve been doing lots of comparisons by switching cameras (the a-1 and the a9 iii) back and forth. This morning, I worked on experimenting with various white balance settings on the a-1.
Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, I hope that you too are learning and having fun.
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This image was created on 30 April 2024 down by the lake near my home at Indian Lake Estates, FL. Working from the driver’s seat of my SUV, I used the BLUBB-supported Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens, the Sony FE 2.0x Teleconverter, and The One, the Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless Digital Camera). The exposure was determined via Zebra technology with ISO on the thumb dial. ISO 2000. 1/800 sec. at f/8 (wide open) in Manual mode. When evaluated in RawDigger, the raw file exposure was determined to be dead solid perfect. AWB at 7:23:36am on sunny morning. Tracking: Expand Spot/AF-C performed perfectly even at 1200mm. Be sure to click on the image to enjoy a high-res version. Image #1: Sandhill Crane post-preening pose |
Looking for Different
I head down to the lake most every morning when I am not on the road, and most every morning, there are Sandhill Cranes to photograph. Sometimes I get bored with the cranes. The challenge therefore, is the quest for something new and different, or at least for something perfect. Image #1 fits into the latter category. Most of the cranes are tame. When the adults are foraging, they are difficult to photograph as they are moving constantly. When I see a pair standing in one spot, they are almost always preening; it is easy to drive into point blank range. I’ve made many thousands of images in such situations. Heck, possibly tens of thousands. Is there anything about Image #1 that bug you?
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This image was created on 3 May 2024 down by the lake near my home at Indian Lake Estates, FL. Working from the driver’s seat of my SUV, I used the BLUBB-supported Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens and The One, the Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless Digital Camera). The exposure was determined via Zebra technology with ISO on the thumb dial. ISO 800. 1/400 sec. at f/4 (wide open) in Manual mode. When evaluated in RawDigger, the raw file exposure was determined to be perfect. AWB at 7:11:46am as early clouds and fog blocked the sun. Tracking: Expand Spot/AF-C performed perfectly. Be sure to click on the image to enjoy a high-res version. Image #2: Sandhill Crane adult and young bird-scape with tree and ground fog |
Different for Sure
When I headed down to the lake on Friday morning, there were some low clouds to the east and some ground fog on the North Field. I drove past the adult and colt foraging to see if there was any possibility of fire in the mist conditions by shooting back into the soon-to-come sunrise. But the fog was not thick enough. So I made a U-turn to check out the bird-scape opportunities. I stay far back so that I could put the birds in a corner of the frame and include the ground fog. That is when I noticed the tree. As the sun had not broken through the clouds, I was able to shoot south to north as sun angle would not be a problem. Image #2 was the best of the lot.
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The Digital Basics III Video Series |
The Digital Basics III Video Series
I realized about a year ago that my digital workflow had changed significantly and was toying with the idea of writing Digital Basics III. More recently, I have learned and begun working with two great new Photoshop Tools, the Remove Tool and the Luminance Targeted Adjustment Tool. The former is like a smarter Spot Healing Brush Tool on steroids and the latter is a huge step up from the fabulous Color Mixer Tool. During that same time frame, I came up with a new and improved 2-step noise reduction technique. I still use Divide and Conquer, Quick Masks, Layer Masks, an expanded array of personalized keyboard shortcuts, and tons of other stuff from both versions of Digital Basics.
As soon as I realized that I did not want to take on another large writing project, I realized that by creating a series of videos I could much more easily share all the details of my current digital workflow and much more easily incorporate additional new tips, techniques, and tools as I went. And so, The Digital Basics III Video Series was born.
You can purchase Volume I and save $26 by ordering the first five videos in one fell swoop here. #5 was sent last week. The videos will be most valuable for folks using the latest version of Photoshop (2024) or Lightroom along with Topaz DeNoise AI and Topaz Sharpen AI and for those familiar with the techniques detailed in the earlier versions of Digital Basics.. Especially Digital Basics II.
Typos
With all blog posts, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors.
LOVE #2!
Of the two, I prefer the environmental portrait #2. It’s fairly unique and intriguing. It provides a lot of opportunities for getting creative in the post processing. For example, I would work on darkening or eliminating the sky as it distracts from the subjects. Additionally, I would like to see a bit more foreground and might bring some rays of light in to illuminate the subjects. In terms of image 1, I suspect that you were a bit below eye level and may have made that decision to avoid having the line between the trees and sky run through the head?
Thanks, Adam. Me too. I hate messing with white skies; the results always look too phony. And the white sky provided the soft light that I needed. I would never even think of cropping to eliminate the sky as that would destroy the shape and form of the gorgeous tree, the centerpiece of the image.
I love the position of the cranes, tucked nicely into the corner so I would not have gone that way.
I already selected and lightened the two birds.
With #2, see my Reply to Cliff Beittel.
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Your post preening photo. I’m a sucker for a nice bird portrait.
Thanks. It posed for a second while preening and Tracking: Expand Spot nailed the eye!
with love, artie
I favor Image #1 for its juxtaposition of the bird’s head and back, an unusual look for a long-necked bird. Don’t think I’ve seen a SACR portrait like it. Might have been nice to have the bill and face completely against the sky, but fine the way it is. For Image #2, I love the birds, fog, trees, flowers, and composition, but wish the grass was a little “rougher.” I had the same problem after our 2022 hurricane, staying on a golf course for three months that was home to at least four adult cranes. Usually went for closeups with birds on the fairway, going wider when they were in the rough or under pines. Helped that the course was closed to play and not mowed for a bit after the storm.
Thanks, Cliff. I agree on a bit more sky but the BLUBB was on the window that was lowered completely :-(. The grass is what the grass was, surely softened a bit by the ground fog.
with love, artie