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Spread Your Wings
Spread Your Wings
hughletheren


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Birds (Advanced Editing IV)
Camera: Canon EOS-20D
Lens: Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
Location: St Ives, Cornwall, UK
Date: Jun 8, 2005
Aperture: 1/800s
ISO: 200
Shutter: f/7.1
Galleries: Nature, Animals
Date Uploaded: Jun 12, 2005

 When you watch gulls flying, especially when they are gliding, it looks as if it would be easy to capture them in flight. Even with auto focus and focus tracking it is a challenge to get shots in focus and in frame - the rate at which they move across the viewfinder has to be seen to be believed. This shot is in focus but the image of the bird is near the top edge of the frame, producing a letter box crop which provides in my opinion, an unusual but poor composition.
To improve the composition and increase the actual size of the bird in the final frame, I wanted a diagonal composition (limit of 640 pixel width). However, the position near the top edge made that challenging. So I used an increase in canvas size, cloning and healing to recover a natural looking sky in the top right hand corner, after I had cropped and rotated the image to create the required composition. I could have achieved the same effect by selecting the bird and moving it into the vacant sky below but that breaks the DPC rules. What I have done, in my opinion, meets the spirit of the rules - nothing was added that wasn't really there, nor has it changed the appearance of the image.
The image was "developed" using Capture One Pro and processed in CS PS; increased canvas size, rotated crop, cloned and healed, levels, increased saturation, decreased brightness, increased contrast, burned the eye, cloned out a mark (which was really there, improving on nature. . . . ) on one wing, USM, resized and USM again.
Some may suggest oversharpening - it isn't, the halo around the white outline is the sun shining through the plumage and it is there in the unsharpened original.

Statistics
Place: 45 out of 289
Avg (all users): 6.1941
Avg (commenters): 7.2308
Avg (participants): 5.9873
Avg (non-participants): 6.4783
Views since voting: 1361
Views during voting: 361
Votes: 273
Comments: 14
Favorites: 0

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AuthorThread
 Comments Made During the Challenge
Nikon D70
 06/19/2005 02:01:43 PM
beautiful, wish my pic was this great!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/19/2005 06:34:49 AM
great capture..technically totally okay
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Canon EOS-20D
Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
 06/18/2005 09:56:46 PM
Great classical wingspread with cool backlighting to aid the grace and beauty and that perfect poise.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Sony DSLR-A550
Sony DT 18-70mm f/3.5-5.6 Aspherical ED
 06/17/2005 05:13:57 AM
I really like the way you have managed to fill the frame with this image and it is crisp and sharp 9
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Nikon D1H
Sigma 14mm f/3.5 for Nikon
 06/16/2005 09:56:50 PM
Nice clean shot. Good full frame diagonal composition. Flawless blue back ground. Plenty of detail in the wings. Deserves to score well.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Canon EOS-1D Mark II
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM
 06/16/2005 09:18:48 AM
//www.dpchallenge.com/image.php?IMAGE_ID=102288 < --- it didn't work out so well for me. No ribbon, no 6. I hope yours is doing much better! Nice shot!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Nikon D100
 06/15/2005 04:52:40 PM
Great angle
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT
Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
 06/15/2005 03:56:26 PM
beautiful capture , brilliantly exposed in very tricky lighting conditions, you've managed to keep the whites brigt without being blown out, great technique.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Nikon D810
Nikon AF-S DX Zoom Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8G IF-ED
 06/13/2005 09:46:13 PM
nice capture...one of the better seagull shots for the challenge...well done
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/13/2005 08:42:11 PM
This shot is crisp crisp crisp! The colors are great but did you have to crop it so tight?You may have used a bit more sky and ofset the bird slightly. 6 Good luck!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D
Konica Minolta AF 70-210mm f/4.5-5.6 II
 06/13/2005 02:19:04 PM
lovely detail ......just fine
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Canon EOS-7D
Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 DC Macro for Canon
 06/13/2005 12:07:21 PM
We've seen several of these but this is quite nice with the light and contrast.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Canon EOS-60D
Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0 L USM
 06/13/2005 02:39:04 AM
Awesome capture .. well done and good luck
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Fujifilm X-T5
Fujifilm XF 23mm f/2 R WR
 06/13/2005 12:17:52 AM
The spread is nicely captured. I like your composition too.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
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