BBWD Update

[Harryb]

Hi you'll,

Last year with the Black-bellied Whistling Ducks we started out with two parents and 12 ducklings and by the end of the season there was one parent and one duckling surviving. This year we started out with two parents and 24 ducklings around 3-4 weeks ago. Right now there are 9 ducklings left. I'm sure Walt Disney would have handled it in a happier manner.

http://behret.smugmug.com/photos/33323629-L.jpg

http://behret.smugmug.com/photos/33323611-L.jpg

http://behret.smugmug.com/photos/33323624-L.jpg

http://behret.smugmug.com/photos/33323628-L.jpg

http://behret.smugmug.com/photos/33323621-L.jpg

There's always one of these guys hanging around

http://behret.smugmug.com/photos/33323594-L.jpg

[Khaos]

Great stuff Hary. I really like #3 and 4.:thumb

[rahmonster]

They are gorgeous Harry! Very nice shots:lust

[luckydog]

Great collection of shots. I also like the way you slipped in the last one that suggests the reason for the dwindling numbers.

[bfjr]

rough life in the wild. Hope they maket it !!
really well done set :thumb

[Harryb]

Great stuff Hary. I really like #3 and 4.:thumb
Thanks.

[ginger_55]

Bambi's mother died in old Walt Disney days. Children cried. I have never seen the movie. Can't.

good shots, sad story.

ginger

[BigAl]

Sad story Harry - unfortunately the way of nature. I like the last duck pic with the adult and two chicks :thumb

regards
alan

[ginger_55]

Harry, Ben ordered a BB, so a BB is a thing? Is that a better beamer for the flash? Is that what you used?

Can I say that I like the photos better w/o a flash?
(maybe that is because I can't afford a BB, but I doubt it, they are just so, sooooo, sooooooo.............I can't think of a word). Flashy, no, bright? Maybe.
I just like my little bee striped ducks and all the others better w/o the flash. Not all things, maybe just this stuff.

Or maybe you could tone it down??

Smile, ginger (who loves the bumble bee photos anyway) And next you are going to say that no flash was used, and I will feel like an idiot, etc. Not a new thing.)

[Harryb]

They are gorgeous Harry! Very nice shots:lustThank you very much. :curtsey

[Harryb]

Great collection of shots. I also like the way you slipped in the last one that suggests the reason for the dwindling numbers.
Thanks. A gator caught one of the parent ducks last year.

[Osprey Whisperer]

Hey Harry,

Nice set of shots. A bit fowl...though. :D I'm curious....about your water shots. Your blues are so "unusual". Almost not real looking. Do you use any filters ? Is this that wonderful Nikon glass ? Any PP work? Not a knock...just notice that you (along with Ben, Jeff) all have some cool blue water. I know you guys are on opposite sides of the planet ...but all use Nikons. Is this some sort of parameter in the camera body? Just wondering. I can get those intense blues with some PP work..but I've never seen such blue water around these neck of the gulf. I (albeit poorly) try to reproduce my colors as closely as I saw them. (this could be the problem in itself) :rofl

Well done.

Cheers

BMP

[Harryb]

rough life in the wild. Hope they maket it !!
really well done set :thumb
Thanks Ben. I would bet that 3-4 will survive to the end of the season. One of the reasons they have so many ducklings is the high casualty rate.

[Harryb]

Bambi's mother died in old Walt Disney days. Children cried. I have never seen the movie. Can't.

good shots, sad story.

ginger
Thank you Ginger and I didn't use a flash on these pics.

[Harryb]

Sad story Harry - unfortunately the way of nature. I like the last duck pic with the adult and two chicks :thumb

regards
alan
thanks Alan

[benbo]

WOWWWWWWWW....super shoot....
BenBo

[Angelo]

hey Harry - I look at #1 and #3 and I see KPOTD!!! :thumb

[Harryb]

Hey Harry,

Nice set of shots. A bit fowl...though. :D I'm curious....about your water shots. Your blues are so "unusual". Almost not real looking. Do you use any filters ? Is this that wonderful Nikon glass ? Any PP work? Not a knock...just notice that you (along with Ben, Jeff) all have some cool blue water. I know you guys are on opposite sides of the planet ...but all use Nikons. Is this some sort of parameter in the camera body? Just wondering. I can get those intense blues with some PP work..but I've never seen such blue water around these neck of the gulf. I (albeit poorly) try to reproduce my colors as closely as I saw them. (this could be the problem in itself) :rofl

Well done.

Cheers

BMP
Hey Mike,

Thanks for the kind words. As for the water, I was really very unhappy with the water color in these shots. They RAW shot unprocessed had too much Cyan for my taste. The WB was fine though. I tried a couple of shots where I desaturated the Cyan and Blue and it ended up a bit too greyish. I will probably rework these shots again when I have more time because I'm satisifed with the water.

When I shoot shots on the water I only shoot in the early AM or towards sunset when the water colors are intensified and you have some neat reflections. I hate water shots where the water is greyish or lacking appeal. I haven't used filters yet for my wildlife shots. In my post work I try to capture the water as it was and then I will up the saturation a tad. One of Nikon's strength is the way it captures colors, IMHO.

If I really don't like the water color then I go to my heavy guns and just chnage it with this handy dandy plug in http://www.outbackphoto.com/reviews/tools/20011025_colormechanic.html

[Osprey Whisperer]

Thanks for the info, Harry. I know I give you (and the others) grief about the Nikons...but I own one of their 35mm and 7 Nikkor lenses. I've always liked their glass. I have no "real" loyalty to any brand. I went with Canon based on features/cost. I picked up the 20D for not much more than the Nikon D70 was going for. I thought it was more camera. I'm just as impressed with the 2 Canon lenses I own (50mm macro / 200mm "L") as I am with my old Nikkor glass. It breaks my heart to have to part with that old FM2N and all those AI-S lenses. Can't focus most of them manually anymore. :cry Oh well... truth is..I"ve taken some pretty decent shots with some pretty crappy cameras in the past. It's all in the beer..ughm light. :thumb

Take 'er easy

BMP

[Ric Grupe]

I like these.:D

The survival rate is poor for all waterfowl...methinks.

[Harryb]

WOWWWWWWWW....super shoot....
BenBo
Thank you very much Ben.

[Harryb]

hey Harry - I look at #1 and #3 and I see KPOTD!!! :thumb
Thanks Angelo maybe I'll submit one of the shots.

[snapapple]

Beautiful Harry! I love those little bumble bee stripes. They're so unusual, I think Kodak would go for them too. :clap:clap

[Harryb]

Thanks for the info, Harry. I know I give you (and the others) grief about the Nikons...but I own one of their 35mm and 7 Nikkor lenses. I've always liked their glass. I have no "real" loyalty to any brand. I went with Canon based on features/cost. I picked up the 20D for not much more than the Nikon D70 was going for. I thought it was more camera. I'm just as impressed with the 2 Canon lenses I own (50mm macro / 200mm "L") as I am with my old Nikkor glass. It breaks my heart to have to part with that old FM2N and all those AI-S lenses. Can't focus most of them manually anymore. :cry Oh well... truth is..I"ve taken some pretty decent shots with some pretty crappy cameras in the past. It's all in the beer..ughm light. :thumb

Take 'er easy

BMP
Hey Mike,

Not to worry. I'm only concerned with the images I see not the brand of the camera. When I got my first DSLR I went into the store not knowing which camera I would walk out with. I tried the D100 liked it and then tried the 10D. The 10D kept backfocusing so I bought the D100.

[Harryb]

I like these.:D

The survival rate is poor for all waterfowl...methinks.
Hey Ric,

Glad you like them. From what I've seen the BBWDs are on the high end. The Morhens seem to do a lot better but they have far fewer chicks.

[Harryb]

Beautiful Harry! I love those little bumble bee stripes. They're so unusual, I think Kodak would go for them too. :clap:clap
Thanks Snappy

[rutt]

Very nice captures and compositions. Nice and sharp!

As mentioned, though the colors don't seem right. And I see another problem, expecially with the baby ducks, a lack of shadow detail. We'd like to see the detail in the black feathers.

Both of these issues can be addressed in post. Let's take up the color issue first since it is especially easy to fix using my favorite tool, LAB curves. Harry, as you said, the water is too cyan. What this means is that it has too much green, maybe a reflection from surrounding vegetation. Here is my edit of the first shot and the LAB curves that I used:

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/33936862-O.jpg

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/33936870-S.jpghttp://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/33936873-S.jpg

If you are not up on LAB, you might want to read this post of mine: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=1926 The A curve gets the green out of the water. I used ALT-CLICK while looking at the A curve to mark a point on the curve that shows how much green is in the water. Then I pulled the point downward until the water had a more natural blue compositon. The B curve gets adds just a little yellow in the extreme range to balance the red in the beak and compensate a bit for the green I removed from the vegetation as a side effect of removing it from the water. You could use layers to accomplish a more local solution to this problem, but I think that always looks less natural than global color theory based solutions.

The second problem, lack of shadow detail, is harder to address, especially with only low resolution jpegs to work with. Nevertheless, I was able to improve the original somewhat:

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/33936875-O.jpg

This story isn't as easy as the LAB curve story. I used a Dan Margulis trick which has taken me a year to understand, but which works like a charm when you finally get it. If you have Professional Photoshop (and you really should have it!) this is explained in a section titled "How to Hold Shadow Detail" starting on page 131 of the 4th edition. I'll explain enough here to give the idea. If there is interest, I'll answer questions and try to explain in more detail.

The idea is to work on the black channel in CMYK. After all, that's where the shadow detail should come from. Unfortunately, standard CMYK separations end up with too much black. The result is that we can't steepen the curve enough where we need to because there is already too much black there. So Dan uses a custom CMYK conversion and severely limits the amount of black. The result is a very light black channel which can be steepened heavily and sharpened nearly toi death. Once this is done, though the blacks have way too much ink, because they have not only the CMY componenst from the custom separation but also now a lot of ink from the black channel. To bring it all together use Selective Color for black and dial back the CMY channels enough to reveal the shadow detail but not so much as to ruin the deep blacks. One more trip though CMYK curves to deepen the very deepest blacks might have been a good idea, but there is a limit to how much I'm willing to do with a low res original.

As I said this sounds complicated and I had a hard time catching on to it. But if you follow Dan's discussion step by step with this image, it all comes together. Like all Dan's methods, it works best if you actually understand theory that is guiding it unstead of just blindly following the recipe as I did when I first encountered it (and tried to use on the picture of my dog which sometimes shows up on the smugmug banner.)

This will work tons better starting with the full res 16 bit original, no doubt.