Lorikeets

[FootLoose]

Do you ever wonder if they really are looking at you, or if it is just that their eyes are on the side of their heads?
#1
Lorikeet 2_M8A2256 by Foot Loose2012, on Flickr



Did you ever wonder how does peristalsis work when you eat standing on your head
#2
Lorikeet 3_M8A2289 by Foot Loose2012, on Flickr

C&C Welcome



And then they suddenly flip around and eyeball you, and you realise they have been watching you all the time
#3
Lorikeet 5_M8A2329 by Foot Loose2012, on Flickr



"let me give you a word of advice, sonny..."
#4
Lorikeet 6_M8A1618 by Foot Loose2012, on Flickr



Are you still watching me?
#5
Lorikeet 4_M8A1607 by Foot Loose2012, on Flickr



The sun is setting now, and I am just going to ignore you
#6
Lorikeet 1_M8A1597 by Foot Loose2012, on Flickr

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[mugge]

love #2 to #6, number 1 is a bit busy for me. That is only my opinion.
Cheers Ole

[Ziggy]

Colorful series. Like the last one the best.

[Dave Humphries]

Great series Greg,

As Ole mentions; #1 is probably the weakest, but #5 is wonderful when viewed at 100%.

Well done, Dave

[bnnrcn]

Lovely series Greg

[NorthernFocus]

Really nice set of images. I love the pose in no.3. No 5 has great isolation and the detail is off the charts. Well done.

[Dave A]

Talk about great color, well done.

Dave

[FootLoose]

John, Ole, Jim, Dave, Binnur, Dan, Dave A, thank you all for commenting. I got lucky: I was wandering around the botanic gardens and as I walked through the cactus area this flock of lorikeets descended on the flowers.

[rpcrowe]

Really nice captures...

[Chrisclick]

Very nice shots, Greg. Lorikeets are one my favourite photographic subjects, and these are captured beautifully!

I'm not sure where you are in Australia, I'm guessing this was the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney? Here on the north coast, Lorikeets are the norm, and can be heard or seen, just about anytime of day.

If I had to pick a favourite from your series, it would be #5.

As the sizes vary from shot to shot, I assume that these were cropped from the originals. Our modern high-megapixel cameras give us the flexibility to compose our shots in post production - one of the many benefits of digital photography. One of the drawbacks however, is if you ever intend to print a series of shots that have been cropped to different ratios, each of the prints will be a different size.

I only mention this because it is something that I learned while contributing to another online photography forum, where some of leading members were highly critical of variations in crop size within a single set. Being dyed-in-the-wool photographers, they encourage those of us with less experience, to get the composition right in-camera. I suppose it does make one a better photographer, but gee, there's a lot to think about before each shot, until it all becomes second nature.

Cheers.

[IzzieK]

Chris...Greg lives in the 'Gong, a bit nearer you than the Banana Benders that proliferate this forum. All good photographers too.

Anyway, I can relate to your captions in these shots...each one of them. Just watching these lorikeets at least they settled down. Some of them can be quite fast. Judging from my backyard feeders, I think most birds are watchful...by nature, they have their plan B of escape if Plan A did not work. All nice images. I have nothing to nit about...However, I just thought the answer to your dilemma on shot #2 is to flip the image vertical after pp but then you lose your plot there. From #3 - #5 have the most beautiful poses. 'Can't pick a favourite from them...

[FootLoose]

Hi Chris,
I'm on the south coast - south of Sydney, that is - in the 'gong. I took the shots in our little botanical gardens. Lorikeets are in abundance here too.

You make an interesting point about the crops. I cropped all of them because the parts of their bodies not shown were obscured by the plants they were 'attacking'. I'm pretty sure I cropped them all to 1500px on the longest size for display here. But for printing purposes I wonder if that should be converted to millimetres?

[Dave Humphries]

EDIT: I have edited this post in response to a PM from Chris which revealed I had mis-understood the point he was making. Since others have found the post useful (probably the workflow bit), I have corrected my mis-understanding rather than just delete it.

As the sizes vary from shot to shot, I assume that these were cropped from the originals. Our modern high-megapixel cameras give us the flexibility to compose our shots in post production - one of the many benefits of digital photography. One of the drawbacks however, is if you ever intend to print a series of shots that have been cropped to different ratios, each of the prints will be a different size.

I only mention this because it is something that I learned while contributing to another online photography forum, where some of leading members were highly critical of variations in crop size within a single set. Being dyed-in-the-wool photographers, they encourage those of us with less experience, to get the composition right in-camera. I suppose it does make one a better photographer, but gee, there's a lot to think about before each shot, until it all becomes second nature.

Hi Chris,

When shooting wildlife (as you know), we may not always have a lens that's long enough to give a frame filling composition, so PP cropping is almost inevitable and in many cases I find this necessarily changes the aspect ratio of the shot, resulting in a series which may 'change shape' between images. In general, I am fairly relaxed about this, although I do try not to have jarring size or shape differences; e.g. swapping between portrait and landscape orientation and having some shots twice the size of others. As we later discovered, in next post below, the bigger #5 was accidental on Greg's part.


My work flow approach (for anyone interested):

To maintain quality and consistency, my wildlife workflow is to (obviously) fill my 6000 x 4000 frame as much as I can at time of capture, by use of longest lens and getting closer when that's possible - which many times it's not, due to physical barriers, risk to myself, risk to the wildlife, or risk to photo opportunity - by scaring them away.

Thereafter, I do a compositional crop* in PP, but I always hope to retain an image which is at least 3000 x 2000 px (but it might be larger, or a bit smaller), I save this as a psd, then (for on-line use) I down size the PP crop to fit people's viewing screens and generally aim for 1500 x 1000 and would make all images in a series this standard size, despite dimensional variations at the 'compositional crop' stage. I then do a 'final sharpen' on the reduced image and save it as a separate file name (Saved As jpg) for on-line use, so I still have a larger sized, processed (psd) file.

For printing (from the larger psd file), even if all are the same aspect ratio, I would not print them all at 300 dpi (which would result in different sized prints) - I would individually sharpen each to achieve best results from a consistent series print size.

Obviously there are limits imposed by resolution, camera shake, subject movement, light/ISO used, atmospherics, etc. which determine, for a series, the maximum sensible image/print size that it is possible to extract, so the lowest common denominator usually rules - but if there were one image that was exceptionally detailed, like Greg's #5, yes, I might produce that bigger for effect. Although I do agree (with Chris) that with a series, it is generally better to have a consistent size, so it doesn't 'jar' when flicking through in LyteBox.

If the series is all landscape orientation; this might be a series of images which have the same width (so the position of the left/right arrow icons in LyteBox don't change much from shot to shot), but allowing the height to vary a bit, as long as it doesn't exceed, say 1000 px.

If the series is all portrait orientation, or 'square' ; the critical dimension becomes people's screen heights, so 1000 px, or slightly less, is preferred. We should remain aware that large differences in image width may be inconvenient for viewers using the left/right arrow icons in LyteBox to move through the series though.

* Compositional Crop: I will sometimes crop for best composition even if this means not doing all in a series to a standard aspect ratio. e.g. if there's something distracting in the final frame I need to exclude and cropping is better than cloning, then I might well end up with varying aspect ratios and even orientations - it all depends on what I am submitting to.

If a composition requires a vertical orientation shot (or square), this would be produced to be no taller than 1000 px (so it can be viewed on a decent monitor at 1:1 full screen). No point in having it 1500 or 1600 tall, people cannot view it (sharp) without scrolling, or they have to see a softer version (downsized by browser) to view without scrolling.

HTH, Dave

[FootLoose]

I have just checked all the image sizes: I did resize all to 1500px wide but it appears I neglected to do so with the 5th one, which is 2000px wide.

And I add my thanks to Richard, Chris, Izzie and Dave for viewing and commenting, especially Dave for your instructional advice.

[Saorsa]

I use FastStone for a lot of my cropping and it makes it easy to create a cropping mask to a particular aspect ratio (even if odd). For example, for square crops I use a 1:1 ratio which creates a square crop box on the image. I can then drag the corners to get the crop I want and keep the aspect the same.

If I want a common aspect for a storebought frame I use the 4x5, 5x7, 8x10, etc. as an aspect ratio and it prints to fit.