Nature Photographers Network
This is the preserved archive of the original Nature Photographers Network. The community continues at naturephotographers.network.
The look - Osprey
‹ PreviousAvian GalleryNext ›

The look - Osprey

by Geoff Powell

Gallery: AvianPosted April 5, 2012160 views11 comments
I know some of you like to see the birds up close, so I thought this would make a nice companion to my last post, which is decidedly more environmental (my preference), than this post. However, here is another shot (95% of full frame) of an osprey from the trip. Handheld from the boat, 500mm f4 at ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/2500.

Thanks for the view/comments on the last post. I hope you enjoy this one as well.

Thanks,
Geoff

Comments

11 comments
Comment posted by Richard Ditch on April 5, 2012 at 6:40 PM
Very nice position; excellent sharpness; great exposure.

Well done.
Registered on November 1, 2003, 1031 Posts, 12705 Comments
Comment posted by Scott Frye on April 5, 2012 at 8:08 PM
Osprey looks good and sharp nice flight shot. On my monitor the color of the sky does look quite right and there are some funny blue colors in the upper part of the far wing
Registered on February 3, 2007, 387 Posts, 1136 Comments
Comment posted by Geoff Powell on April 5, 2012 at 8:30 PM
I understand Scott, I tried everything to do something with the sky. Nothing worked to my satisfaction, so I just left it. It basically has a grey tinge to it. I could have desaturated the blues up in the wing, but it was there in raw so I left it. No amount of white balance or hue adjustment would change the sky to what I felt was suitable. I even tried painting it in there with a luminance layer in photoshop and that worked ok, but it still felt fake and "perfect". So I figured the best thing to do was just leave it how the camera set it. Auto-WB. I've included my luminance painted layer just to show the fake feel I felt it brought in. The only thing I did to this image was crop to 95% of the total image and bring out some shadow detail, then sharpen. That was it.
Registered on March 20, 2012, 21 Posts, 170 Comments
Comment posted by Cheryl Molennor on April 5, 2012 at 8:40 PM
Awesome pose, light and detail.
Registered on June 30, 2009, 300 Posts, 5051 Comments
Comment posted by Dennis Plank on April 5, 2012 at 10:13 PM
Great flight pose, Geoff. Those blue patches in the far wing are wierd-can't figure out what would cause that.

:toast:
Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments
Comment posted by SandyRichardsBrown on April 5, 2012 at 11:18 PM
Re-post is excellent - wonderful pose, fine detail, and nice BG,
While it's always tempting to crop very tightly with an image like this, it feels a bit too tight to me. I'd personally leave a lot more room on the bottom and right. As is, very centered.
Sandy
Registered on November 24, 2003, 3937 Posts, 12909 Comments
Comment posted by Keith Bauer on April 5, 2012 at 11:46 PM
Flight pose is nice, details are nicely captured as well. As noted (and mostly corrected in your repost) helps a lot. I took the larger image, dropped it into Photoshop, used a Threshold adjustment layer to find the whitest and blackest points, then used a curves adjustment layer to set the black/white points. Reducing the overall opacity of that layer seemed to generate colors that solved the odd sky color. Happy to share that if you are interested.

edit: Just noticed that the larger version did not have an embedded color profile. That will create even bigger issues getting any consistency in viewing based on individual web browsers.
Registered on November 20, 2003, 458 Posts, 4836 Comments
Comment posted by Geoff Powell on April 6, 2012 at 8:32 AM
Thanks Keith,

A slight S curve with a curves adjustment layer does fix the sky color, but it loses a bit of detail in the breast and back wing area. I don't have any experience with a threshold layer adjustment so if you could either post the PSD file so I could take a peak at what you did and learn from that would be fantastic. If not, perhaps you have a source where I could read up on it.

Many thanks,
Geoff
Registered on March 20, 2012, 21 Posts, 170 Comments
Comment posted by Jude Haase on April 6, 2012 at 4:06 PM
Beautiful flight capture!! :toast:
Registered on April 3, 2006, 236 Posts, 1657 Comments
Comment posted by Neal Cooper on April 6, 2012 at 4:48 PM
Geoff. I like it a lot. The wing position, underwing light and overall pose. Very nice indeed.
Registered on June 3, 2009, 144 Posts, 306 Comments
Comment posted by Ken Archer on April 6, 2012 at 6:15 PM
Awesome flight capture Geoff. Great wing position and details.

Ken Archer
Registered on October 28, 2004, 222 Posts, 6683 Comments