Reed Warbler

Taken a couple of weeks ago whilst looking for dragonflys. I found both parents still feeding some recently fledged young. I took many images but they would rarely come into the open for a clear shot.

D2x 600mm 1/1000@F5.6 ISO200 -0.7EV

Excellent Colin. Light looks quite harsh and you've kept it all there. good comp for me.


Graeme

Hi Colin

Very well caught shot of the Reed Warbler. I know how frustrating these birds can be and trying to get a decent shot of them in a reed bed is tricky to say the least.

My only nit, as pointed out by Graeme too, is that the lighting looks a bit harsh and cool. I am wondering if you could tweak the white balance during RAW conversion to give a softer and warmer feel to the image.

Otherwise an excellent capture, well done

cheers

Sean

Hello Colin

Nits mentioned, nice image of a difficult bird to photograph.



Danny

Thanks guys for all your comments and a totally agree with the coolness in the image. My problem is when I look at both images in CS and the forum side by side on the same screen the image in CS looks much warmer than the posted one. Does anyone else have this problem? And any idears what am I doing wrong?

Hi Colin

I am not quite sure why you see a difference, are you converting your image to sRGB colour space before saving your web image? I noticed your image doesn't have an embedded ICC profile so maybe you are editting in AdobeRGB, and then saving in AdobeRGB but not specifying the embedded profile. This would account for the difference in appearance.

I hope you don't mind but as an experiment I downloaded your image and tweaked it a bit so that it looked a bit warmer and more attractive, at least it does to me on my monitor.

I did the following, levels slider midpoint to .90, Saturation +4, VelviaVision filter intensity 1, strength 6%. For me the warmer look to the image is a bit more appealing, maybe I have overdone it a bit but it is useful as a comparison.

The VelviaVision filter effect could probably be achieved using the normal Photoshop filters (e.g. a warmup filter). I don't normally use it for wildlife shots but I quite like the result on this shot.

cheers

Sean

Colin, here is my tweaked image ;

Sean your image is virtually the same as what I see in CS I’m amazed you got it so close, your also correct about working in AdobeRGB. I have tried converting the image to sRGB before saving but it then looks more washed out when posted.

Thanks for your help

Hi Colin

Hmmm, I can't think what your problem might be then as it sounds like your colour space conversion is done ok. I do pretty much the same thing as you, manipulate in AdobeRGB and then convert to sRGB profile for posting to the web, although I usually embed the sRGB profile into the jpeg file.

Maybe one of the other PhotoShop guru's on the forum might have some further ideas.

cheers

Sean

Hello Colin
Excellent image of the elusive little bird, I also like the reed effect he is trying to make (if you see what I mean?).
Sean's alterations certainly improve the photograph. If you are still having problems with your posts losing colour, try increasing saturation by about 15 before "save for web". It will look odd when you apply it, but look OK once saved for web.
Best wishes
Phil

Hi Colin ,

A fine shot and good job on getting such an unobstructed view.

I think the added warmth, shown in the repost works really well.

Hi Colin,so this is what you were telling me about when you came round,nice detailed shot,I set my camera to sRGB,saves the need to convert



Regards

Barrie