{"id":5484,"date":"2011-05-10T22:41:07","date_gmt":"2011-05-11T02:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/?p=5484"},"modified":"2011-05-11T07:57:59","modified_gmt":"2011-05-11T11:57:59","slug":"90-minutes-in-the-waiting-room-what-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/2011\/05\/10\/90-minutes-in-the-waiting-room-what-to-do\/","title":{"rendered":"90 Minutes in the Waiting Room; What to Do?"},"content":{"rendered":"

90 Minutes in the Waiting Room<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Jim drove me up and back to the doctor’s office so that Dr. White could take a “quick peek” at my left hand. We arrived at 4:35 pm for my 4:45pm appointment. The waiting room was a sardine can of patients. I was called in at 6:18 pm…. I am glad that I brought my laptop. When the bandages were removed I was surprised to see that the hand looked 300% better than it had when I changed the dressing and cleaned the incision at 11:30am that same day, Tuesday. In just 7 hours the remaining swelling had about disappeared as had the redness. “Wear the cast till Friday but remove it four times a day and exercise the fingers.” Easy to say and do for the index, ring, and pinkie fingers–the thumb is outside of the fiberglass cast–but a painful ordeal with the middle finger as the tendon is still quite involved…. And will be for some time. Plus. I hate the cast. You gotta love it. <\/p>\n

I took Jim out for a well deserved dinner at Fishbones on Sand Lake Drive; shrimp and scallop scampi for my right-hand man, oak planked sea bass and broccoli for me. Plus a great salad with freshly-grated Parmesan cheese. After a quick stop at CVS on the way home for some rolled cotton bandage and gauze pads, we were back at ILE just a bit after 9pm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The image above is a JPEG that represents the original RAW capture. It was created at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm<\/a> with the Canon 800mm f\/5.L IS lens<\/a>, 2X III teleconverter<\/a>, and the EOS-1D Mark IV<\/a>. ISO 400. Evaluative metering -1 stop: 1\/250 sec. at f\/11 set manually after histogram and blinkies check. All in all,it is pretty bad.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

What to Do?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

What to do with the image above? Delete it? Why? It is horrifically cluttered. There are spots of bright sun blasting away in a few spots, most notably right behind the adult’s lower leg (that is right behind the chick’s fluffy butt.) There are several branches in filtered light: full shade and bright sun. And then there is the thin bright branch pointing right at the chick’s head. And the chick’s face is less than razor sharp. Is this image beyond help? <\/p>\n

I did, however, like the way that the adult Snowy Egret was juxtaposed with the Great Egret chick. Heck, that’s why I pushed the shutter button in the first place!<\/p>\n

What to do? Heck, with no place to go I decided to give the image a go and see if I could come up with something both pleasing and sale-able. From conversion to the optimized image (see same below) took me about 45 minutes. Here are the tools and techniques that I used: Clone Stamp Tool, Spot Healing Brush, Patch Tool, and lots of Quick Masks several with Layer Masks. Eye Doctor work on the pupil. Divide and conquer. A Linear Burn on the chick’s face only. Selective sharpening via a contrast mask on a Quick Mask selection layer. And a Selective Color adjustment adding BLACK to the WHITEs with the areas to be darkened painted back in via an Inverse Layer Mask. Pretty amazing no? But what is more amazing is the fact that the use of every technique and tool mentioned above (plus tons more) is described in detail in our Digital Basics File<\/a>, a PDF that is sent via e-mail. The best $20 you will ever spend on photography. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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This is the optimized image that I created from the rather horrible original at the top of this blog post. Do let me know what you think of the optimized file. Before you write suggesting that I be locked up for a few years for being a digital criminal, do consider the image caption: “Great Egret chick in nest adult Snowy Egret in BKGR– EXTENSIVE BKGR CLEAN-UP _W3C9953 St.tif” And do consider the fact that the optimized image below depicts an egret chick in a nest with a smaller egret species in the background, same as the original capture. Even though the clean-up was extensive, the natural history of the situation has been maintained, at least for me, Is it a contest winning image? Not by a longshot. But it is rather pleasing and it does have sales potential. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Shopper’s Guide<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Below is a list of the gear that I used to create the image above (along with some related items). Thanks a stack to all who have used the Shopper’s Guide links to purchase their gear as a thank you for all the free information that we bring you on the Blog and in the Bulletins. Before you purchase anything be sure to check out the advice in our newly revised Shopper’s Guide<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Canon 800mm f\/5.L IS lens.<\/a> Right now this is my all time favorite super-telephoto lens.
\n2X III teleconverter<\/a>. This new TC, which is noticeably sharper than the 2X II TC, is designed to work best with the new Series II super-telephoto lenses.
\nCanon EOS-1D Mark IV professional digital camera body.<\/a> My workhorse professional digital camera bodies. <\/p>\n

And from the BAA On-line Store:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Gitzo GT3530LS Tripod.<\/a> This one will last you a lifetime.
\nMongoose M3.6 Tripod Head.<\/a> Right now this is the best tripod head around for use with lenses that weigh less than 9 pounds. For heavier lenses, check out the Wimberley V2 head<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Delkin 32gb e-Film Pro Compact Flash Card.<\/a> These high capacity cards are fast and dependable.<\/p>\n

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I pack my 800 and tons of other gear in my ThinkTank Airport SecurityTM V2.0<\/a> rolling bag for all of my air travel and recommend the slightly smaller Airport InternationalTM V2.0<\/a> for most folks. These high capacity bags are well constructed and protect my gear when I have to gate check it on short-hops and puddle jumpers. Each will protect your gear just as well. By clicking on either link or the logo below, you will receive a free gear bag with each order over $50. <\/p>\n

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\nThink Tank Free Offer<\/font><\/a>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

90 Minutes in the Waiting Room <\/p>\n

Jim drove me up and back to the doctor’s office so that Dr. White could take a “quick peek” at my left hand. We arrived at 4:35 pm for my 4:45pm appointment. The waiting room was a sardine can of patients. I was called in at 6:18 pm…. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-90","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdsasart-blog.com\/baa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}