The Raven

Gallery: AvianPosted November 26, 201358 views4 comments

While seeking photo subjects all around San Francisco, I chanced upon this raven, on the beach near Cliff House. It played with this stick for several minutes while I watched and captured images from close by.

Please comment and critique.

Location: Beach near Cliff House in San Francisco, California

Equipment: Pentax K110D, Pentax DA 18-55mm at 55mm, handheld

Exposure: 1/750s, f/13, iso 800

Crop: 5% of left, 15% of right, and 10% of top to remove small amount of waves.

Post processing in Lightroom 5: Burned sand, burned log to bring out grain, cloned out large pile of debris (mostly tiny driftwood sticks) in front of raven, dodged dark areas of raven's body and head.

Comments

4 comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on November 26, 2013 at 10:49 PM

Lovely composition, Randy and I like the puffed out plumage around the head. Black birds are really tough subjects and this came out pretty well.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Ray Whitt on November 27, 2013 at 8:18 AM

Nice pose with good detail in the head, would be nice if you could lighten up the body a bit.

Ray

Registered on May 27, 2011, 92 Posts, 2619 Comments

Comment posted by Howard Cheek on November 27, 2013 at 6:40 PM

I'm with Dennis, like the plumped-up plumage about its head, nice pose with lifted head Randy.
Good comp & job exposing the blacks too, always tough

Registered on July 24, 2008, 1201 Posts, 10758 Comments

Comment posted by Randy Runtsch on November 28, 2013 at 7:50 AM

Thank you for the kind comments, Dennis, Ray, and Howard. The crow's body has been brightened about as much as it could be. It even went to a point where the feathers turned to spots of red, green, and blue, so the exposure had to be backed off to return to black.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Registered on October 30, 2013, 50 Posts, 445 Comments