Sunset backlit seagull taking flight

[gmarquez]

(Pardon the re-post - I'll have to find a new hosting company, as my current hosting company, who will remain (*ahem* GEO) nameless (*ahem* CITIES), doesn't believe in serving my files 100% of the time)

This time, hosted from my new photobucket account (again, thanks Emma):

I've been getting "skunked" on my latest photo expeditions, but at least this one is a bit interesting. Consider it a study on worst case exposure because it really wants a much higher dynamic range than today's digital cameras can muster (although Nikon's d-lighting can pull out *some* detail out of the dark silhouette).

 

[ClarkKent]

Seems to be a bit of noise in the seagull, but what a great capture. Excellent work.

 

[gmarquez]

Seems to be a bit of noise in the seagull, but what a great capture. Excellent work.

Thanks! Out of the camera the seagull was a black silhouette. I wanted to bring in at least a faint outline of the other "interior" wing, so I used Nikon's d-lighting to bring out a little (noisy) detail out of the darkness. As was posted in another thread (same picture, but with a bad hosting company), another way to go would be with a completely dark silhouette.

 

[abraxas]

Interesting shot of a common subject. I like the colors in the water and the translucence(sp?) of the feather edges. Too bad about the overexposed bit of water. The little sud-bubbles are cool too.

 

[ClarkKent]

I think maybe if you were to take the file and change it to lab mode, and blur out the red and blue channels it would help. Thats what I do for noise, and it seems to help out a little bit.

 

[mdw]

Nice! I like the gold light and the seagull taking flight. I would have taken a horizontal picture though. Now there is practically no room left for the bird to 'fly' into...

gr,
Roger

 

[gmarquez]

Seems to be a bit of noise in the seagull, but what a great capture. Excellent work.

Thinking about this some more, I looked at this shot on two monitors, both supposedly calibrated. On one (my wife's awesome monitor), it looked like I intended...just a touch of detail to outline the inner wing edge, which would otherwise be lost in a true silhouette, but dark enough to mask almost all of the seagull detail (and with it, the noise).

However, on my older (yet still 'calibrated') monitor, the detail and noise of the seagull was plainly visible. Not my true intent.

So if you can plainly see the markings of the seagull, as well as the noise there, that's not what I had intended. :er: Ooops.

This is probably closer to what I was going after:

 

[mec621]

i love it fantastic!