Post your best bird shots!

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Originally Posted by ddt0725

Joel - Beautiful photo of the towhee! Now if I can ever get anything that perfectly exposed and sharp, I will then consider myself a great photographer!

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Well thank you so much....I have no doubt you can get similar results...learning some basic stuff in CS5 will do it for you.


Here is what I use 99% of the time


Adjust exposure, recovery, blacks, clarity in ACR then open the picture as a 16 bit TIFF


Crop the image and clone out anything that needs to be fixed or you want to fix


Levels adjustment


Selective color adjustment (usually just the reds, whites, neutrals and blacks)


Sharpening (unsharp mask)


Create a duplicate layer and run noise reduction


Create a reveal all layer mask


Use the black paint brush to reveal the sharpened bird and perch


Flatten the image


Change the image mode to 8 bit


save a full size copy as a 8 bit tiff


reduce size to 800 pixels


one more pass with unsharp mask


save as JPEG (less than 200kb quality)





It looks like alot but once you do each step a few times you can optimize a good image in a few minutes


Let me know when you want the details of any of those steps

Here are couple firsts for me, I was too lazy to set up a perch. Heck, after 12 hour 6 day week it's amazing I even went out to take pictures at all!


Ok here goes.


[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Discussions-Components-Files/15/3250.IMG_5F00_7626_5F00_DxO-reduced.JPG[/img]


[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Discussions-Components-Files/15/8814.IMG_5F00_7628_5F00_DxO-reduced.JPG[/img]


This is the first time I got a clear shot of these guys.


[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Discussions-Components-Files/15/8171.IMG_5F00_7701_5F00_DxO.TIF-reduced.JPG[/img]


Just another Chickadee. Looks like he might have been fighting, he has something on his lower left chest.


[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Discussions-Components-Files/15/2260.IMG_5F00_7704_5F00_DxO.TIF-reduced.JPG[/img]


My favorite of the bunch, first time I got a clear shot ot of this guy.


[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Discussions-Components-Files/15/6303.IMG_5F00_7734_5F00_DxO.TIF-reduced.JPG[/img]


[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Discussions-Components-Files/15/3731.IMG_5F00_7729_5F00_DxO.TIF-reduced.JPG[/img]


First shot of a Female Starling (I think), you can see the weather sealing in action! Oh no, I'm getting soaked![:)]


[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Discussions-Components-Files/15/1050.IMG_5F00_7751_5F00_DxO.TIF-reduced.JPG[/img]


[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Discussions-Components-Files/15/3438.IMG_5F00_7770_5F00_DxO.TIF-reduced.JPG[/img]


[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Discussions-Components-Files/15/3010.IMG_5F00_7780_5F00_DxO.TIF-reduced.JPG[/img]


First time I shot a Black-Headed Grossbeak, these guy are awsome in real life.


Sorry for so many posts, I haven't shotin a while and couln't help myself! All taken in about half an hour, much faster than waiting out in the swamp for two hours for some ducks!


Cheers,


John.

Great shots, John!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fast Glass

First time I shot a <s>Baltimore Oriol</s>

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While there's a first time for everything, this wasn't it for you. The baltimore oriole is orange like that, but has a narrower and longer beak, and a different pattern on the backs of the wings. What you did shoot for the first time is a black-headed grosbeak. Still just as awesome...[Y]


For comparison, here's a Baltimore oriole from my archives:


[url="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dr_brain/4844142232/in/set-72157624462563459/lightbox/]http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4092/...81acae78_z.jpg[/url]
EOS 7D, EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6<span style="color: #ff0000;"]L IS USM @ 400mm, 1/640 s, f/6.3, ISO 1250

Thanks a lot John! I

John (Neuro) thanks for the bird ID, I would have made the same mistake Fast Glass did. I also have another one for you ---If I can ever catch him on camera. I have a bird that frequents my yard (When I don

John, Great set----You have so many great looking and colorful birds---Please send some south.


Thanks,


Bob

John (FastGlass)....one more correction for you; the bird you've ID'd a female Starling is a female Red-wing blackbird. Simply, the beak is the give away; starlings have long, narrow, normally yellow beaks and stouter bodies.


ID for the woodpecker (just in case) is a Downy....looks exactly like a Hairy, but much smaller body and (here's that beak again) a shorter beak.


Nice collection of birds in the rain John....your wx looks pretty similar to ours (Boston, MA area)....WET!! We're having a terrible spring.


It's ruining my daily pix of the owlet's growth....I went over yesterday and took my cycling rain jacket......not for me, but for the 500. I don't have a rain jacket to cover my set up. [:)]

It seems that everywhere I look on this forum there's another shot of a hummingbird, except in this thread. I'm not complaining, of course, the birds here are all great shots too. I've been too busy lately to check the site often and comment, but I had a treat catching up with recent posts tonight.

Here's a good antidote to the hummingbirds. This Southern Giant Petrel flaps its wings about once every 50 seconds instead of 50 times per second.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3015/...2a9e5fe9_b.jpg
5D Mark II, EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM @ 400mm, f/11, 1/400s, ISO 125.

Hey Fast Glass (John),


Really nice set, and what a wonderful variety of birds!


The only one that could be better would be #8 since the eyes are not sharp and it has it

At Bill.


Thanks for the correction, I