he was sitting on a pile of dirt just next to the road and
he didnt move for a staggering 41 sec's, a first for me, and
the longest i ever held my breath
taken handheld at 400mm 1/40sec iso800 f/6.3... no IS
next to no light, so not much color or contrast, what would
you guys do to make it pop a bit more ?
looks fine to me as is. it's got a lovely monochromatic tone to it and i think it suits the BG very well.
mark
Posted by szekiat chan on October 31, 2007 at 6:40 PM
if it was shot in RAW, u can try playing with the vibrance level found in ACR.
Posted by Graeme Lee on October 31, 2007 at 6:42 PM
Looks pretty good to me too bar the clipped tail. Nicely composed as well. Took the liberty of downloading your image (now deleted!) and had a bash. Used shadow/highlight to drop the highlights a bit altering tonal range. Bit of stauration added too. Not convinced it's any better though I'd love to have had this experience. Nice one
mark: yeah i thought so too at first, but at the same time it looked so flat so i decided
to try and go for more color/contrast
szekiat chan: i did try fooling around with both levels and vibrance, and it helped a great deal
compared to the original image, it ended up looking more like i remember the scene
Graeme: the shadow/highlight thing seems to work for me, thanks. i will leave the saturation
as is, and have a go at the other methods you suggest.
Posted by Paul Gibbs on November 1, 2007 at 5:13 AM
Very nice, 1/40 with a 400mm! impressive hand held! I like the original image, shame you didnt get it in portrait.
Posted by Mike Smith on November 1, 2007 at 5:26 AM
Posted by Mark Fellowes on November 1, 2007 at 6:22 AM
Great eye contact; bizarrely enough, one flew over Richmond on Saturday morning as I was leaving from Pen Ponds direction and the last shot of the morning was a record to confirm ID. There were 3 or 4 other people photographing the deer there at the time, so if you were there and heard the parakeets having a go at a raptor, and didn't recognise it, you've seen a pretty scarce visitor to London
Hi Christian, a very nice shot indeed, I agree with Graeme's suggestion of some shadow/highligth.
Looks like it's going to be a great year for Rough-legs, it was a great vole-year in Northern Norway and I saw many breeding pairs up there this summer. Also migration in Denmark and Sweden has been very good - up to 200 juvies in a single day, so maybe our British friends are going to get a few this year as well
it just goes to show that it pays to ask when in doubt.. i just learned some new PS
tricks with curves and levels from you guys now there might still be hope for
the rest of the series.
Lets hope your right Helge, roughleg's for everybody this year
Just for info, it was taken at dusk sunday in Scania (southern Sweden)
Posted by writepic on November 1, 2007 at 12:29 PM
Very nice, clipped tail already mentioned... There have been a couple of reports of rough legs on Sheppy...
Mark...
Lots of ring necked parakeets all the way along the Thames, with a very large population in Richmond Park.. also very common in north west Kent and Thanet.
Phil
Posted by Mark Fellowes on November 1, 2007 at 5:00 PM
They're doing well, and have spread some distance - I live in west Surrey and there's a small local population here now. I think that they're attractive, but I think that they may be having a negative impact on hole-nesting birds - I'm not sure if this has been studied though.
how very bizzarre....PLEASE don't tell me THAT'S global warming....more like escaped pets or something right? yes i imagine there is a negative impact on some native species or another, there always is.
an interesting story non the less.
mark
Posted by Mark Fellowes on November 1, 2007 at 6:28 PM
They've been around for a while - they used to be (still are?) kept as pets and escapes first bred in Kent in 1969. There are feral populations in urban areas around the world, from Japan to the US - all escapes too. They're actually protected in the UK now. I have to admit that along with mandarins and wood ducks, that there are some introductions that I secretly like - I'm just glad that I don't live near a winter roost - raucous!
Mark
Posted by Mike Smith on November 2, 2007 at 8:55 AM
The winter roost at Esher rugby club was quite (in)famous - it reached a staggering estimated 10,000 birds at one point, but I think it has pretty much broken up now - it was featured in one of the Bill Oddy series a few years back
The trick now is to identify an expanding population of feral Monk parakeets amongst the Rosy Ring Necked parakeets - the Monks are much more destructive in habit so a bit more of a concern environmental and conservation wise - told by the lack of ring in the adults otherwise very similar in appearance
Posted by John Swift on November 2, 2007 at 9:06 AM
Great capture that really wants to be shot as a vertical in my opinion.
Discussion
16 replieshe was sitting on a pile of dirt just next to the road and
he didnt move for a staggering 41 sec's, a first for me, and
the longest i ever held my breath
taken handheld at 400mm 1/40sec iso800 f/6.3... no IS
next to no light, so not much color or contrast, what would
you guys do to make it pop a bit more ?
Cheers
Chris.
hi chris,
looks fine to me as is. it's got a lovely monochromatic tone to it and i think it suits the BG very well.
mark
mark: yeah i thought so too at first, but at the same time it looked so flat so i decided
to try and go for more color/contrast
szekiat chan: i did try fooling around with both levels and vibrance, and it helped a great deal
compared to the original image, it ended up looking more like i remember the scene
Graeme: the shadow/highlight thing seems to work for me, thanks. i will leave the saturation
as is, and have a go at the other methods you suggest.
The simplest way to add contrast and depth is via the curves function
a further "added pop" technique is here
Mark
Looks like it's going to be a great year for Rough-legs, it was a great vole-year in Northern Norway and I saw many breeding pairs up there this summer. Also migration in Denmark and Sweden has been very good - up to 200 juvies in a single day, so maybe our British friends are going to get a few this year as well
it just goes to show that it pays to ask when in doubt.. i just learned some new PS
tricks with curves and levels from you guys
the rest of the series.
Lets hope your right Helge, roughleg's for everybody this year
Just for info, it was taken at dusk sunday in Scania (southern Sweden)
there are parakeets in london???
Mark...
Lots of ring necked parakeets all the way along the Thames, with a very large population in Richmond Park.. also very common in north west Kent and Thanet.
Phil
They're doing well, and have spread some distance - I live in west Surrey and there's a small local population here now. I think that they're attractive, but I think that they may be having a negative impact on hole-nesting birds - I'm not sure if this has been studied though.
Mark
how very bizzarre....PLEASE don't tell me THAT'S global warming....more like escaped pets or something right? yes i imagine there is a negative impact on some native species or another, there always is.
an interesting story non the less.
mark
Mark
The trick now is to identify an expanding population of feral Monk parakeets amongst the Rosy Ring Necked parakeets - the Monks are much more destructive in habit so a bit more of a concern environmental and conservation wise - told by the lack of ring in the adults otherwise very similar in appearance
Regards
JohnS