Birds at the zoo

[Rita]

After many years of not going to the local zoo I took a jaunt there today. Here are 3 of the birds I took. I did change the bg on the owl (using masking) because the original was lousy. As always comments and critiques are most welcome

1.


2.


3.

[Mark von Kanel]

love the owl, very crispy and well composed, but a greeny brown back groung would work better i think

[Kaye Leggett]

Great shots. I'd order them 2,1.3 to tell the story. As whatever you said to the second bird, he obviously wasn't impressed, the owl looks sceptical too and as for the peacock, he obviously wasn't listening !!

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[IzzieK]

All very good shots, Rita. I was liking the owl best until I saw #2...this well worth the many minutes I keep going back and forth to take a look.

[bnnrcn]

These are super Rita I especially like #1 and #2 , I would remove the watermark in #1.

[Rita]

Thank you all for the positive feedback.

Mark, I have done a quick re-do on the owl to give it some more green in the background. I think you are right on the bg colour. This one isn't really the best but I will find a better one later.

Kay, I like the story. And how true, they just weren't willing to listen or believe me

John & Izzie, thank you.

Binnur, oops, the watermark wasn't supposed to be on here. I was playing around to see how to do a watermark and accidentally put it up here.


Here is the re-do of the owl.

[Nicks Pics]

I think the owl re-do does look better, but how you changed what looked like sky into what looks like vegetation, I don't know. As for the peacock thing, I always like to make sure the birds are facing a desirable direction when I have a chance.

[Rita]

Thank you Nick. I used a different background in the re-do. Someone on another thread posted the link to a tutorial on how to change backgrounds in PS. As I am just learning PS I gave it a try. Here is the link if you are interested http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u2BpzrwG3s it took me a few times through to get it but once I got it the procedure is really quit simple.

I would have preferred a different direction of the peacock but it just wouldn't look any farther in my direction

[Mike Buckley]

Very nice, Rita!

A quick comment about your choice of background: There are two reasons the revised background works better. If you review a gazillion photos of owls that are not flying, you'll find very, very few that have only the sky as the background. That's probably because owls position themselves in less exposed situations when they aren't moving (though I know nothing about the habits of owls). If I'm right, your first background would seem odd.

Regardless, your first background seems odd because the sky doesn't match the lighting on the owl. Though I would expect such a sky to produce somewhat diffuse light, not as diffuse as on the owl. Just the opposite, the lighting on the revised background seems as diffuse as on the subject, making it a good fit both relative to the thinking mentioned above and to the quality of light.

[Brownbear]

Hi Rita,

Yes, very nice shots. The owl being my favourite - beautiful capture. I prefer the 2nd background but I think it still doesn't look quite right (natural) I wonder if the background on the peacock would work with the owl, or something in between the two.

The peacock would be my favourite if his/her head was just turned a little more (profile or facing) and a wee bit more DOF. The colours and detail are gorgeous. I think you should pay him/her another visit.

PS A zoo in Abbotsford?

[Rita]

Mike, thank you for your feedback. I appreciate the explanation of why it does/doesn't work. Don't know why I used the first bg, perhaps it was the first one I came to in my files The second bg I took a small crop from another image of the owl I had.

I am really enjoying working through "Light, Science, & Magic". It is helping me to see things differently

Christina, thank you for your feedback. I will be paying several visits to the zoo. It is the Greater Vancouver Regional Zoo on 264th just South of Hwy 1 in Aldergrove. When I heard that they had a Raptors show I went and purchased an annual pass so I can revisit anytime. It makes for a good place to practice with birds and wildlife. Hopefully the Peacock will be more cooperative next time

[Brownbear]

Hi Rita,

Thank you for advising. I just looked it up and it's a 3 hour bus ride or longer, and then I would still need to take a taxi as the zoo seems to be in the middle of nowhere. I will just enjoy your images and hang around my bears.

[jprzybyla]

Hi Rita, nice images. You are on your way with these, a few small improvements to make them perfect. From you comment you realize that a different head position/angle would have made the Peacock much better, and yes... sometimes the critters will just not move their head. If you can post the image of the owl with the original background before you changed it, sometimes (read most times) it is easier to work with that than to change the whole background. Keep shooting and enjoying.

[Rita]

Hi Joe, thanks for commenting. The owl was taken during the Raptors show so the bg is blurred people (yuck) but as requested here is the image with the original bg.

[jprzybyla]

Hi Rita, obvious why you changed the background. Pretty much an impossible situation but a beautiful bird nevertheless. It is difficult at shows like this to get people out of the way so most time it is best to just enjoy the show and the birds.

[bnnrcn]

The edit looks super

Thank you all for the positive feedback.

Mark, I have done a quick re-do on the owl to give it some more green in the background. I think you are right on the bg colour. This one isn't really the best but I will find a better one later.

Kay, I like the story. And how true, they just weren't willing to listen or believe me

John & Izzie, thank you.

Binnur, oops, the watermark wasn't supposed to be on here. I was playing around to see how to do a watermark and accidentally put it up here.


Here is the re-do of the owl.

[Rita]

Thank you Binnur.

[TonyW]

Rita, I enjoyed these images but more importantly for me I learnt a lot about processes. The YouTube link in particular emphasised to me that my knowledge of Photoshop, even though I use it regularly, is quite limited.

[Rita]

Tony, it is so nice to hear that others are learning from my posts. I have also learned a lot from the posts of others which has helped me to improve.

I have only had photoshop for a couple of months but I am thoroughly enjoying learning it