1 bird 3 pictures

[Oren]

Here is an edited version I made today, what do you think?

[Mark Elberson]

Did you just change the white balance? I like it better. I think the colors are more interesting/pleasing to the eye. I tend to like things on the warmer side though so you may want to wait to see what other people have to say []

[Oren]

I actually changed so many things that I just don't remember what exactly I did, but WB is pretty much the only thing I did not change - I played with it but it didn't make anything better, just worse, so I ended up not touching the WB.
I like the warmer side too, I believe it's natural.

[Mark Elberson]

Wow! I was way off!! How did you change the colors so drastically without touching the WB? Were you editing the RAW file or the jpeg? Canon DPP of Adobe PS?

[Oren]

RAW, LR2.


To get this color I changed the saturation in 3 different channels (under the "HSL" box):

• Orange: +100
• Yellow: -19
• Blue: -100

In the "Camera Calibration" box I also changed:

• Tint: -7
• Red Primary:
  
  • Hue: +31
  • Saturation: -7
  
  
• Green Primary:
  
  • Hue: -100
  • Saturation: +21
  
  
• Blue Primary:
  
  • Hue: -69
  • Saturation: -29
  
  

[Yves]

Well, the water looks like a nice sunrise - but the head of the bird is bright like at high noon. It looks romantic, but not natural...It's just my opinion.

[Oren]

Well I actually never thought about it this way, but I guess you are right.


Welcome to the forum!

[Yves]

...but it's a nice trick to get a sunrise atmospere!


Thanks for greetings!

[David Israel]

Hi Oren,


Whites can be very tricky to get right, without losing detail. Photographing them during harsh lighting conditions compounds the problem.


As you indicated, you didn't really go there to photograph the birds, but to enjoy a BBQ (I hope the food was good [:P] ). You did ask for suggestions as to how you could make the shot better and I think that I can offer you a practical one (no boat required!). Although, in fairness to earlier posts, some of the other suggestions (early morning light, etc) were good suggestions, and folks are just trying to offer some helpful advice.


My advice is a technical tip: Turning down your EV when shooting birds with white or bright colored (i.e. yellow) feathers, when shooting under strong light, will allow you to help retain detail in the feathers when you PP. Shooting in RAW also allows some extra flexibility.


Give that a try next time you have the opportunity and see if that helps you keep some of those details without blowing out the whites. Even if you don't have any of the super long telephotos, it doesn't mean that you can't still have some fun trying to capture a few birds with thecamera and lens that you do have!


Dave