Kestrel again again...

During the last month I have visited my little Kestrel friend almost daily. She have now become very tolerant of me. To day I raised a different perch for her, and to my content she landed on it just next to my car. She stayed on for close to an hour so I got to try all different settings with the camera.

As there was no sun today, I tried my flash and BB for the first time(I have no clues to which settings to apply in this situation).

20D + 500/4; iso400, f5.0, 1/160 exp. comp -1; flash exp. -1/3. Nearly full frame, from carwindow on beanbag.

Does this work or is the flash or perch too overpovering ?

Any ideas to improve on perch, settings etc is very welcome - as I'm running out of ideas with her

Hello Helge

Personally I like it all.

Doesn't seem to be any issues with the flash settings to me.

There appears, to my eye, to be a slight blue cast? What was the WB set to?

Regards

Thanks A.R.D - WB was set to auto (I always use that), and I didn't do any changes in the RAW converting. Only change from original is a bit saturation overall (i think +15).

Cheers, Helge

Hello again.

My Kestrel (lower down the topic list - came out like yours, here,when I took it yesterday). I adjusted the Auto WB to Cloudy in DPP (which the weather was) and it looks better to me.

May I suggest you reconvert it with cloud or daylight in your converter?

Regards

Hi again A.R.D. - you are making a good point. Here is a version where I set WB to "Cloudy" and didn't apply anything at all in PS. What do you think ?

Cheers, Helge

Hi Helge

Cracking image - happy to see images of this quality again & again. Good composition, perch and BG. I can see what ARD means the image is a little cold and I think you would also get a good result by adjusting the individual colour channels in levels.

David

P.S. Perhaps you could bring the perch over in January when you have finished with it - although on second thoughts it looks a little heavy for 'hand luggage'

To me, it looks 100% better.

Wish it was mine.

Regards

Hello Helge
Good advice from ARD, and from David, and it is a superb image, I like it a lot (especially no 2 version).
Best wishes
Phil

You dont see the problem until somebody mentions it,The first image looked good but the repost looks better-you can see flash was used but not over done imo-it really makes the image pop

I seem to like the 1st one better, as its got a good seperation from the BG.The 2nd blends in to much for me.

Anyway its a cracking shot, i love it

Your series on these fantastic birds is coming along nicely Helge.

It definately does improve with the WB reset.

Rob

Hi Helge
great picture and a beautiful post.

Hi Helge

Super shot, flash is not obvious. Perch and pose are excellent, maybe slightly too much perch in the frame but it looks great all the same. I can't comment on the colour balance, I am viewing this on my old laptop which does not have great colour reproduction, however I sometimes find just tweaking the white balance with the RAW converter can help, especially if you need to add a bit of warmth to a shot.



cheers

Sean

Cracking image Helge, I prefer the repost though.

Regards

JohnS

It's a superb shot Helge. Considering you were playing 'pot luck' with the flash I think you've done extremely well.

Really attractive perch too.

Michael S

A superb shot Helge.Love the perch.
I never noticed the cool cast on the first shot,but it becomes so much more evident once it's been pointed out and a warmer version can be seen alongside.
I prefer the re-post but also like the original.

Forgot to mention in my last post, but I actually prefer the first version. Somehow it seems to look more 'real'. The second one looks a bit too warm.