Identifications please

[Rita]

After what seems like forever, actually less than 2 weeks, I finally could go out today with my camera. Here are a few shots I took at the local lake. The bird in the first pic, is this a sandpiper? I thought it was but then someone told me it was a kill deer. The other id I am interested in is images 3 & 4. There was a tree with a bunch of small nests in it. Does anyone know what type of nests these are?

And of course any critiques or comments are most welcomed.


1. f6.7 300mm SS 1250



2. f8 300mm SS 1250



3. f6.3 132mm SS 200
This is how the nests look in the tree



4. f6.7 300mm SS 200
A closer look of the nests

[Kodiak]

Hi Rita,

Just passing by… to see that you may not know what you shoot (me neither)
but that you know how to shoot it well! ;-)

[flashback]

Rita, the first shot is definitely a killdeer (reddish orange eye ring and double black bands on the breast). Detail in that shot is amazing.
Images 3 & 4, the first thing that comes to my mind is Baltimore Oriole (or the B.C. equivalent). Certainly the nests closely resemble Orioles.

[Cantab]

Irene, that's a great shot of the killdeer. How close were you to it?

[Rita]

Kodiak, thank you. Having seen some of your work on here I will take your comment as a real compliment I am still very much in the early learning stage. In the last year I have come a long way but I still have a long way to go. Since being on this site my favourite saying has become "Practice, Practice, Practice."

Jack, thank you for confirming the ID on the bird. I never knew we had Orioles here, will have to keep my eyes open for them now. The nests were really quite interesting, one particular tree had a whole bunch of them in it.

Bruce, I was probably somewhere around 10-15 meters away. I turned on the teleconverter in the camera to get it in closer on the image.

[deetheturk]

Lovely set of images Rita, well done

[Shadowman]

This website helps for birds this side of town.

http://whatbird.com/


Nice images.

[IzzieK]

Rita...excellent shots. Love the sharpness of the killdeer. At first it bothers me about the eye part but looking at it longer, I learned to appreciate the beauty of it. Orioles are pretty...I love them for their colours.

[ajohnw]

The best PP I've noticed from you Rita. You used the digital zoom too. Something that shouldn't just be dismissed. It wont help resolution but I feel the bigger image can help at times. I don't know if you used the jpg or did it from raw though.

I took a look at the exif. Distance according to that is 11.5m. Going on my cameras this will be pretty precise. I wish they displayed it in the viewfinder.

John
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[Brownbear]

Hi Rita,

Just to say that I too think the image of the bird is lovely. Beautifully photographed! I love the way you captured the bird looking up with curiosity.

[Rita]

Thank you David, John, Izzie, Jahn and Christina.

John (shadowman) appreciate the link I will look at it more after work today.

Izzie, I am looking forward to seeing the Orioles.

John (ajohnw), the PP was very minimal . I don't use the digital zoom very often but this time it gave me that little extra that I wanted. The image was taken in raw, I never capture images in jpg.

Christina, it was one of those quick looks that came along. I had just focused and the bird nicely did the little tilt

[ajohnw]

I feel there is a need to get the initial PP right Rita and then go further otherwise there is a danger of wanging the sliders around too much. A little can go a long way and then more techniques can be added when that aspect is as good as it can be. I don't think people get much help in this area really.

One thing you could play with on the bird shot that is simple uses layers and I believe can be done in PS. Duplicate the original image twice which will leave 3 layers. Make the top one invisible - ? click on the eye I think. Select the middle one and then desaturate and invert it and then set the mode to soft light. If you move the opacity slider about you will see that it increases the brightness of the darker parts. Then select the top layer and set it to soft light and make it visible. This one gives a type of contrast effect as the opacity slider is changed. The 2 one for brightening the darker areas and the other often work well together.

Just to make sure there is some scope I quickly did one. Better or worse pass. Just a thought about what you could try. I also added another layer and added a square gradient to that fading it out with the opacity slider till it was barely visible. New layer - transparent and soft light again. I managed to drag the cursor the wrong way so simply inverted the layer.



These can also be used selectively. Take the brightening one. It brightens where the inverted image is white and does nothing where it's black so paint areas that are to be left alone black in it and they wont be changed. Or use layer masks which are very similar and needed for the contrasty one. There is plenty of info about on what to do in those but not much on what layer modes can do. These 2 can take you towards a sort of glossy look - if that's what you want.

Looking at the original image histogram you might find reading up on levels may help too but I have no idea how PS presents those. People who produce good images seem to use some sliders which are kicking about in the curves panel. How do I know - sometimes I take a look.

John
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[bnnrcn]

I like #1 very much Rita

[Rita]

John, thanks for the tip I will give it a try.

Binnur, thank you :}