Ice Fishing

It was a good morning shooting. This image was shot in color and not altered (other than boosting contrast). It's a warm day (60F) but the ice from the winter has yet to melt. It was also very foggy today. The result is a very muted effect. I particularly like the wing position on the bird.

ISO 250, f/5.6, 1/1200

I really love it Rachel. Seagulls have been my favorite ever since reading Jonathan Livingstone Seagull as a child. The composition, lighting, choice of B&W, bokeh, focus; they are all OK

Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,

But that's just it, Cem! It's shot in color!

Rachel Foster said:

But that's just it, Cem! It's shot in color!

Click to expand...

Aha!! Look who wasn't paying enough attention! Shame on me :-(
But I still love the image anyway

Cheers,

Thanks, Cem. The grayness of the bird, the lake, and the day captivated me.

Interesting how the weather can fool the camera! I too love sea gulls ; difficult to see them here, but
am fascinated by them. I can feel the ocean, the wind in my face, the shrills of them birds, the fishermen and their boats...guess i need to visit the sea.

Wonderful capture, Rachel.

Thanks! I miss the sea terribly. It's a comfort to see them here even though the closest ocean is hundreds of miles away. Lake Michigan is huge but it's not the same. The waves are tamer and it doesn't have the scent of sea. The gulls are a nice reminder.

Definitely a nice, mood-capturing image. I wouldn't mind seeing it larger, for greater visual impact, but the appeal comes across as is.

P.S. Who is 'Jacob Eliana'?

(My first post since returning from 11 days in Costa Rica - am still in 'catch-up' mode with much to do, but will try to chime in here from time to time in the interim.)

Jacob is my son, Eliana is my daughter, and Jacob Eliana is the name I use to keep my avocation separate from my "real life."

Hope the Costa Rica trip was a good one.

Rachel Foster said:

Jacob is my son, Eliana is my daughter, and Jacob Eliana is the name I use to keep my avocation separate from my "real life."

Hope the Costa Rica trip was a good one.

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Ah, that explains it!

Costa Rica was spectacular - many new birds species, but 3 very exciting close encoungers with Monkeys! I have many photos to sort through, but also quite a bit of HD video. The photos by themselves will take some time, but the video takes even more, and can be quite tedious!

Here it is, larger:

Thank! Nice!

I love the sights, sounds, and smells of the ocean as well!

Rachel

"Johnathon Livingston Seagull"

you have him caught!

Charlotte-

Rachel,

Much prefer the larger version. Love birds-in-flight imagery. This one is very nice.

The appears to be a Ring-billed Gull. We have a lot of those in Boise.

Rachel Foster said:

It was a good morning shooting. This image was shot in color and not altered (other than boosting contrast). It's a warm day (60F) but the ice from the winter has yet to melt. It was also very foggy today. The result is a very muted effect. I particularly like the wing position on the bird.

ISO 250, f/5.6, 1/1200

Jacob Eliana: Ice Fishing​

Click to expand...

Rachel,

You were smart to use 1/1200 sec in this shot. I presume this was with a 70-200mm lens or else the 28-105mm at 105mm, however you somehow lost the EXIF! do you save for the web. I'm so intrigued as to how the meta data info gets lost and wonder if it's really still there in the file, but that's another matter.

Is this location near you?


Asher

When I copy and put on the white background it sometimes loses the exif.

Without the pasting on the white, here it is



You guessed right: 70-200.

This is in Muskegon, MI, which is about a two hour drive. If you ever make it back this way, I'll take you there.

So, Rachel, what process do you use to add the white border that might be stripping the EXIF?

Asher

Great that you have the 70-200 f4.0. This makes a lot of sense. Dd you happen to shoot this RAW as there's a lot of highlight and dark tones that have zero data. So RAw processing in 16 BIT might have ben a good idea.

Asher

I always shoot RAW now. In fact, a couple of months ago I borrowed my husband's Rebel XTi and afterwards discovered he had taken it off RAW and was shooting JPEG only. I was tempted to shoot him!

When I put the white border on the image, I open a new file, copy the original, paste it onto the new white file, crop, and save. Is there another way to do it?

I actually prefer this image except for the position of the right wing.

Does background help here at all?

Rachel Foster said:

It was a good morning shooting. This image was shot in color and not altered (other than boosting contrast). It's a warm day (60F) but the ice from the winter has yet to melt. It was also very foggy today. The result is a very muted effect. I particularly like the wing position on the bird.

Click to expand...

ISO 250, f/5.6, 1/1200


Rachel,

It may be strange that I'd fuss over your one bird mage, but I'm interested in the challenge of making pale mages show well.

I do like the image and the fact that you, (as a photographer of mostly still things), would become so adventurous as to try to track this bird in flight. It usually needs the steady hands of a 20-40 year old! Well, we folks have to do our best and IS is a great help.

The choice of lens, the 70-200 f 4.0 IS L s perfect as it's lightweight, stabilized and has just enough reach to get the bird with background. I'd consider the x 1.4 extender as this would give you an equivalent of 280mm of grasping power. I've just tried the 300 mm f4.0 IS L and it's another great lght lens.

You picture has a white border that doesn't show up. For the light tones, a darker b.g. might be better. So I've done that. Thanks for the kind permission to experiment.

Also, the image data is just located n the center 1/3 of the histogram. That means there is no data for the dark hues and none for the brights either. So How does this happen. Was it an overcast day and you underexposed or an underexposed image and you had to open things up?

So I adjusted the white and black points and then created an S curve to give the bird some more pop. I sharpened the bird at 0.3 pixels and ~ 250% and then faded it with luminous blending and replaced the edges with the original so as not to have halos from over-processng.




The changes are merely subtle but hopefully enough to make the bird more dimensional. It could that I should have done more work to include detail on the beak and around the eye which I didn't attempt. I just wanted to see one could get more out of the file, albeit just a small jpg. However, there's not such a lot of detail there.

Maybe I should also try it again with a RAW file and see if one can grab a little more detail. Obviously, taken with a 500 mm the birds feathers would be perfect. However, it's interesting to see what's the best one can do.

Asher

Hi Rachel,

Rachel Foster said:

I always shoot RAW now. In fact, a couple of months ago I borrowed my husband's Rebel XTi and afterwards discovered he had taken it off RAW and was shooting JPEG only. I was tempted to shoot him!

Click to expand...

So did you "shoot" him? If you do, make sure to share the picture here, lol.

Rachel Foster said:

....When I put the white border on the image, I open a new file, copy the original, paste it onto the new white file, crop, and save. Is there another way to do it?

Click to expand...

Ah that explains why you lose your EXIF metadata! Don't do it this way. Just use the Canvas Size command of PS (Image>Canvas Size or use the shortcut key combination of ALT-CTRL-C). And in the pop up screen which appears, change the units of the width/height to "pixel" and enter a value in both fields. For example, to add a border of 40 pixels all around, put in 80 in both width and height fields. Check the "Relative" box and click the central box in the anchor drawing. And finally, choose the color you want for your border. HTH.

Cheers,

Thanks, Cem.

Asher, the lens is not the IS lens. My budget couldn't accommodate that. This is the $700 70-200 L. The day was extremely gray and very foggy.

Thanks for showing me how you did this, Asher. I can send you the RAW if you'd like.

Asher Kelman said:

I do like the image and the fact that you, (as a photographer of mostly still things), would become so adventurous as to try to track this bird in flight. It usually needs the steady hands of a 20-40 year old! Well, we folks have to do our best and IS is a great help.

Click to expand...

Tiny factor compared to desire and practice.