Young Brown-eared Bulbul

Gallery: AvianPosted February 16, 201292 views9 comments

I wasn't going to do anymore Brown-eared Bulbuls, being that they are everywhere and so easy to capture...but, this one came nice and close up, and with a fairly nice bg, too. Yeah, it's a little dark, but it is in its environment, so it works for me.

Canon EOS 60D
Lens: Sigma DG 120-400mm 1:4.5-5.6 APO OS HSM
Focal Length: 400mm
f8.0
Shutter 1/800
ISO 400
Monopod

Cropped about 10%

Comments and constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.

Comments

9 comments

Comment posted by Richard Ditch on February 16, 2012 at 6:25 PM

It may be "in its environment" but it doesn't work for me. It is simply too dark from under exposure.

To get a better idea of what it could have looked like with better exposure: open the image in Photoshop; duplicate the layer; set the blend mode to "Screen." You can continue to do this with more duplicate layers to bring the brightness up to correct levels but it will still have the problems with noise from being under exposed.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 1031 Posts, 12705 Comments

Comment posted by Edward Scott on February 16, 2012 at 6:40 PM

Yeah, you're at 1/800 and f8 on a sitting bird. You have plenty of leeway to slow down the shutter speed and or open up the aperture to let in more light without worrying too much about motion blur.

Registered on February 8, 2012, 22 Posts, 70 Comments

Comment posted by Barbara Graham on February 16, 2012 at 6:51 PM

I love the detail on the bird, and the colors. I also like the light on the bird, although I could see brightening or lightening the image a bit.

Registered on July 27, 2010, 1310 Posts, 5035 Comments

Comment posted by John Tobias on February 16, 2012 at 7:55 PM

Mark, nice detail and pose, but as others have stated abit dark. You could have used your built in flash to give a bit of fill light but, would have dropped your shutter speed down to 1/200 I think. Still I think just a bit of lightening will make a big difference. Thanks for sharing.

Registered on September 12, 2009, 2120 Posts, 6455 Comments

Comment posted by Tonia Graves on February 16, 2012 at 9:30 PM

Wonderful subject and detail, but I have to agree with the others that this is presented too dark. Lightening this up would dramatically improve the image.

Registered on October 29, 2011, 92 Posts, 1035 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on February 17, 2012 at 8:42 PM

Cool detail, although I'd like to see the tail as well. A little shadow/highlight adjustment might help this image, I agree that it's too dark as presented but I think it's worth working on.

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by Mark Deibert on February 18, 2012 at 4:00 AM

Thank you everyone who took the time to comment/ critique my original post of this young Brown-eared Bulbul. I feel I brightened it quite effectively using Richard Ditch's suggestion of using Screen blending mode in PS. It seemed to work wonderfully, but I'm worried about the contrast and introduction of noise. I did adjust the opacity and added a contrast layer, and everything seemed to look fine on my computer. Thank you all again.

Registered on September 30, 2011, 48 Posts, 125 Comments

Comment posted by Richard Ditch on February 18, 2012 at 3:07 PM

Mark:

Thanks for reposting following my suggestion of screen blending. As with most things there are many alternative ways to do similar things in photoshop. I think this approach is a safer way to bring up grossly underexposed images than trying to get the same result with shadow/highlight adjustments, and being able to fine tune with the opacity slider on the final layer is very useful.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 1031 Posts, 12705 Comments

Comment posted by Patrick O'Healy on February 18, 2012 at 3:20 PM

You turned that into a wonderful photo.

Registered on March 13, 2011, 326 Posts, 1679 Comments