Egrets Large and Small

[John 2]

The first two are Small (Crested) Egrets taken recently on the local marshes. It was the first dedicated outing with the new Fuji 100-400mm plus its 1.4X converter. So engrossed was I that I had forgotten it was a spring tide and I found myself marooned for two and a half hours - thankfully though, high and dry and in good weather . The last one was taken at a Lake District reserve and is of two Great Egrets. This was taken a while ago whilst I still had the D7100 and the Tamron 150-600mm.

1.


2.


3.
"....and the animals went in two by two......

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[NorthernFocus]

Beautiful birds and nicely captured.

[IzzieK]

Pretty birds -- I particularly like the cleanest of the first two images.

[chauncey]

Those are good shots all...am curious about your PP technique, care to share?

[Geoff F]

Good feather detail; which is so difficult with egrets.

[John 2]

Thanks all for the comments.

Yes Geoff the detail in the first two is quite satisfying. The lens seems to be performing up to expectation even with the 1.4 converter fitted. I had a good 1.4 converter that fitted the Tamron but using it degraded the auto focus considerably. No sign of that with the Fuji (so far).

William, no problems at all in sharing. All of them were taken in bright conditions and so the main problem was an excess of contrast particularly on the birds. I reduced this in two stages. The first was in ACR by adjusting black and white points then globally using the highlights and shadows sliders plus the Tone curve tool. Then in CS6 I made selective adjustments. Firstly dodging out some of the shadows where it was needed but then in 1. and 2., the background needed some work. With the sun toward the front, it was over bright in 1. and it's been selectively pulled back. There were also out of focus bits floating on the water which looked like dust on the sensor so these were cloned out. In the 2nd image, the grasses in the BG were a bit busy and distracting and I have selectively thrown them out of focus using a graduated mask. Finally, all three images had slight vignettes applied to the top corners and the bottom and the micro contrast in the feather detail was selectively increased using a combination the mid tone contrast adjustment and Nik structure adjustment..

[Dave A]

Nice images John and thank you for the PP explanation.

Dave

[John 2]

You're welcome Dave.

[Sergio M.]

John, a good set, and I especially like the second. The first and especially the third look, for lack of a better word, a bit crunchy(like a lot of clarity or structure added) to me. It could be me or my monitor as no one else has mentioned it. Please disregard if I am seeing something not there.

Sergio

[Nicola]

John, a good set, and I especially like the second. The first and especially the third look, for lack of a better word, a bit crunchy(like a lot of clarity or structure added) to me. It could be me or my monitor as no one else has mentioned it. Please disregard if I am seeing something not there.

Sergio

Very beautiful serie John,
although I see what Sergio wrote, a quite large halo around the egrets is visible on my monitor on pics #1 and #3.
Nicola

[John 2]

Thanks Sergio, thanks Nicola for the comments.

Sergio, I have used both Clarity and Structure to enhance the feather detail. Perhaps a little over done(?).

Nicola, I can't see a halo as such in either image on my monitor even when I push the Levels mid tone slider to the extremes (a good test). However in the first image I can see where my some burning in (probably of a sharpening halo) has bled over the background. Is that what you mean?

[Sergio M.]

Sergio, I have used both Clarity and Structure to enhance the feather detail. Perhaps a little over done(?).

That's up to you, John. As long as you're happy with it, and it seems most folks have liked the processing also.
Don't mind me.

Sergio

[John 2]

That's up to you, John. As long as you're happy with it, and it seems most folks have liked the processing also.
Don't mind me.

Sergio

Feedback is what this forum lives on Sergio. Always happy to receive it.