wild turkeys. c&c please

[WimFoto]

i saw these birds walking along on the road, when i got out of my car they took of in the bush. i slowly walked after them and the moment i started shooting they took off and the sun came out. the pictures turned out to be overexposed because of that.

what would you guys do to improve them ?

thanks,
wim

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[benlonghair]

Higher shutter speed would have helped. Do you shoot in RAW?

Even if you don't, they could be improved by some level manipulation. Something like this:

Then some contrast:

And the final result:

 

[panthrcat]

wow what a difference to enhance those already great images!!!

 

[WimFoto]

thanks benlonghair !

i do shoot in raw. and i did do a bit of contrast and exposure correction. but not levels.
what you did looks way better.

 

[benlonghair]

Levels can be done in your raw converter with curves. Since I'm at work, I'm using PS5, which leaves something to be desired with the curves interface, and levels do the same thing. Using the gamma and linearity sliders (at least in UFRaw) would do basically the same thing.

 

[robertwsimpson]

Turkeys are notoriously skittish. The best thing you can do is wait for them to come to you... for that to happen, you have to be extremely well camouflaged or be around tame turkeys like this one:

they're disappointingly ugly anyway.