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Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Channeling vawendy (Standard Editing)
Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV
Lens: Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS
Location: Queen's Park, Heywood
Date: May 8, 2016
Aperture: 5.6
ISO: 1250
Shutter: 1/500
Galleries: Black and White, Birds
Date Uploaded: May 8, 2016

 A grey heron - most of the time due to their colour they tend to blend into the background, or be darker than the background; this is an effort to emulate a more egret-like appearance of glowing white against dark, by catching a slightly backlit heron against a backdrop of dark trees, and making the most of the contrast.

Shot after some careful stalking and positioning in the wetland area of a local nature park, with the 100-400L IS and the 1D mark IV. The bird was almost backlit by the sun, adding a lot of definition to its feathers, and underlit by reflections from the grass giving it a fill light effect. Manual exposure, wide open aperture to get maximum background separation and 1/500th of a second to allow me to pan and get the eye sharp with the help of the image stabiliser, but still keep some blur in the wingtips.

Editing is a combination of a number of classic black and white processes. After initial contrast adjustment, the image was desaturated after being filtered through a custom blue/magenta filter composed of 80% blue and 20% red transmission, 0% green, to maximise the brightness of the heron's plumage and play down the trees behind even more. Crop, clone out a distracting blade of grass stuck to its beak, dodge and burn. Finally the image was converted to duotone using a custom curve of Pantone Process Black CV for the shadows and Pantone Cool Gray 7 CV for the midtones. This gives it a subtle silky feel that makes the tonality that bit richer, and closer to the complex sheen of silver halide. Then converted back to RGB for upload, resized and sharpened.

Statistics
Place: 29 out of 49
Avg (all users): 5.8148
Avg (commenters): 8.0000
Avg (participants): 5.7241
Avg (non-participants): 5.9200
Views since voting: 607
Views during voting: 94
Votes: 54
Comments: 3
Favorites: 0

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AuthorThread
Nikon D500
Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II
 05/16/2016 08:52:50 PM
Critique Club Comments from Cia,

I've spent a significant amount of time stalking herons as well... I completely agree that getting the lighting right to capture their beauty is a challenging endeavor. I can't say that I am a huge fan of the "egret-like" processing as I love the blues and grays of the heron. But this picture does call to me ... I love the clarity of the eye and beak. This clarity draws you in and encourages you to scan the body and wings. The contrast between bird and trees is terrific. It really pops and does solve the blending into the background problem. I particularly like the lightness of one wing paired with the darkness of the other. I'd love to see more details in the feathers but the silkiness creates a nice effect and brings the motion of flight to mind, which certainly works in this context.

In terms of the challenge ... Your click is a great fit for the Vawendy challenge. A nice match with content from her portfolio. Beautiful.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Nikon D7000
Nikon MF 50mm f/1.4
 05/16/2016 12:29:19 AM
Well thought out, and great result in this one.
Thanks for the read as well.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
Sony Alpha a7R III
Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L II
 05/13/2016 01:03:16 PM
Wow Superb shooting I give 8
Theme: Classic / Light / Dark
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