Merlin

Gallery: AvianPosted March 13, 2011318 views5 comments

Recently taken in Salisbury State Park ,MA. Later afternoon lighting. I was framing between several branches so the framing was very tight. I couldn't eleminate the OOF branch lower left and am inclined to crop to remove as much as possible but wondered if it gets too tight on the tail. I also had to extend the canvas in front by about half of what shows. In the original capture there was another branch starting to intrude on that side that I needed to keep out. Thoughts on what works and what doesn't? (Just too cute to pass up.)

Canon 7D ISO 400 500 L w 1.4x IS on F8 1/320 evaluative +1

Comments

5 comments

Comment posted by Sally King on March 13, 2011 at 3:07 PM

I like the intimidating look he is giving you. Nice warm colors with that late day light. Nice details. I think if you cropped to eliminate the oof branch it would definitely be too tight on the tail. Maybe clone it out. Not that distracting to me anyway.

Registered on December 2, 2008, 416 Posts, 4450 Comments

Comment posted by Ron Bielefeld on March 13, 2011 at 3:52 PM

Nice shot of this merlin Rick. I would clone out the OOF branch if I did anything with it. Could get tricky around the tip of the tail. Nice warm light and I like the overall comp as posted. To me the bird looks oversharpened just a bit and that may be the reason for the halo around the bird. I might back off on the sharpening and contrast just a bit if this were mine. Overall nice shot.

Registered on December 6, 2008, 360 Posts, 7132 Comments

Comment posted by Luke Ormand on March 13, 2011 at 7:04 PM

I like this a lot and Merlins are one of my favorite subjects - anytime you can get them to give you a look like that you are having a good day. I agree with much of what Ron says and will add that there is something that looks wrong w/the colors here. Maybe a curves or levels adjustment will fix it.

Registered on February 4, 2009, 1093 Posts, 7035 Comments

Comment posted by Rick Cloran on March 13, 2011 at 10:00 PM

Thanks for the comments,

Ron, its interesting. I have been running into the halos as a side effect of downsizing and stepping down from 16 bit to 8 bit. They exist even before sharpening. I thought I had knocked the one here out.

Luke, just late light as far as I know. I pushed it back to totally neutral but it didn't look right at all. It may be something that I can try tweaking the white balance temperature and tint on in LR to see if there is a happy middle ground.
Stan

Registered on April 6, 2004, 119 Posts, 1989 Comments

Comment posted by Ron Dudley on March 14, 2011 at 8:30 PM

Rick, to my eye the Merlin looks good in that light and at this size but that OOF branch LL does detract IMO. If this were mine it would be one of those "quandary" shots - I just hate to clone significantly but in this case it might be the lesser of two evils.

Registered on March 30, 2007, 437 Posts, 10915 Comments