A little different for me in that the subject is a falconers bird. This adult tiercel was being carried on the fist and the falconer kindly allowed me to take a couple of portraits.
1/160 @ f7.1 iso 400
105mm
Posted by Nick Mckeown on September 24, 2012 at 4:35 PM
Stunning portrait shot Robert and the landscape crop works very well here. No nits from me matey!
Nick.
Posted by John Robinson on September 25, 2012 at 8:30 AM
Landscape works ok for me too .
Nice kind of "soft" detail.
JR
Posted by Bob Johnson on September 25, 2012 at 12:15 PM
Lovely sharp portrait Robert. Maybe its my office screen but the green is a bit to green perhaps
Bob
Posted by Phil Ellard on September 25, 2012 at 2:08 PM
Do agree a bit too green but the portrait is lovely,
Posted by Paul Whippey on September 25, 2012 at 3:55 PM
Superb portrait Robert, minor nit regarding the greens a bit loud, already covered.
Thanks for the comments. I have taken on board what has been said about the greens being a bit ott and combined that with some advice given bt Steve Kaluski on another post and decided to have a play with the individual colour controls in LR4. As a result I have pulled back the saturation and luminance on the green channel only and I have to admit that I think it does make a difference. Let me know if I'm wrong. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks: Now, if only I can remember it
Posted by John Robinson on September 25, 2012 at 9:32 PM
First looked OK to me Robert.
Its not what is "wrong" with a picture - it seems to me its all down to personal preferences.
So who is right and who is wrong. Nobody. You can play around untill the cows come home and end up with a picture nothing like the way you wanted it. How can you have any creativity when people are tending to go towards stereo type pics which are supposed to look like magazines or individuals or the guide books think they should look. The whole business confuses me the older I get. I have many times puposely gone for a green woodland type image to convey a habitat ambience, only to be told by someone who has downloaded the pic and analysed it with various makes of expensive image software, that it has a "green " cast. I can accept composition problems and "clone this or that "out comments or sharpness problems, but eventually it seems to me that posting pics with your own "style" or "trademark" is not wise on a critique forum. For example - I set my auto white balance biased towards "warm " because thats the way I like my pictures and always have. I accept everyone has different tastes it eventually begins to dissolve down to an accepted and expected protocol. Thats the bit I don't like.
So many will say
"Don't post on a critique forum then."
Always seems to be the answer.
Hi Robert, the RP in terms of the BKG is far better, having that bit more interest tonally and dropping the vibrancy of the green has really helped. I think if you had just moved the lens a little more to the right so you didn't clip the bird you would have offered a better 'portrait' of the subject. In addition, you have some very nice detail, especially in the eye & beak, but with some gentle coaxing I feel you can get some more out to build on what you already have.
Just remember Robert, unless you create a mask and target specific areas ie the background, globally changing the Saturation etc will affect the whole image.
Sometimes it's those little subtle tweaks that brings things all together, good to know things are moving in the right direction.
TFS
Steve
Posted by Phil Ellard on September 26, 2012 at 12:14 PM
John has a fair point i think we do often say we feel it is supposed to look like rather than allowing our own creative judgements to come through. Not posting is not the answer i believe listen to the advice but have the courage, confidence and the wisdom to selectively ignore it. If you work out how let me know
A fair point indeed John and one I have endorsed myself in the past. Yes we have to have the courage of our convictions and believe in what we do. However, we also need to appreciate that other views may well teach us something new. In this instance I happened to agree with the critique regarding the brightness of the background and made an attempt to improve it. Other comments I might not be so in tune with.. for instance Steve mentions clipping the shoulder of the bird. Well the shoulder is included on the original file but I cropped it to achieve what (for me anyway) I considered to be a better balance to the image as it placed the eye of the subject in a stronger position. Having re-visited the original I am happy to stick with the crop as it is. The point being that the critique made me look again at what I'd done to see if I would still be happy with the image.
God forbid we all end up doing the same thing so lets keep doing what we do best.... lets face it John, you must be doing something right if you can get over 2000 views on a posting
Discussion
10 replies1/160 @ f7.1 iso 400
105mm
Nick.
Nice kind of "soft" detail.
JR
Bob
Its not what is "wrong" with a picture - it seems to me its all down to personal preferences.
So who is right and who is wrong. Nobody. You can play around untill the cows come home and end up with a picture nothing like the way you wanted it. How can you have any creativity when people are tending to go towards stereo type pics which are supposed to look like magazines or individuals or the guide books think they should look. The whole business confuses me the older I get. I have many times puposely gone for a green woodland type image to convey a habitat ambience, only to be told by someone who has downloaded the pic and analysed it with various makes of expensive image software, that it has a "green " cast. I can accept composition problems and "clone this or that "out comments or sharpness problems, but eventually it seems to me that posting pics with your own "style" or "trademark" is not wise on a critique forum. For example - I set my auto white balance biased towards "warm " because thats the way I like my pictures and always have. I accept everyone has different tastes it eventually begins to dissolve down to an accepted and expected protocol. Thats the bit I don't like.
So many will say
"Don't post on a critique forum then."
Always seems to be the answer.
Cheers
JR
Just remember Robert, unless you create a mask and target specific areas ie the background, globally changing the Saturation etc will affect the whole image.
Sometimes it's those little subtle tweaks that brings things all together, good to know things are moving in the right direction.
TFS
Steve
God forbid we all end up doing the same thing so lets keep doing what we do best.... lets face it John, you must be doing something right if you can get over 2000 views on a posting