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sunfish

sunfish

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I have been monitoring this forum for a while and am finally posting a photo.
This Great Black-backed Gull was off Plum Island at Jefferies Ledge and was taken with a Nikon D70s, with a Nikkor 28-105mm 3.5-4.5 lens at 105mm, which with the crop equals about 157mm. ISO 320 at 1/320sec at f/11 with a polarizing filter.

I'm pleased with the shot and hope you enjoy it too.

sunfish


Black-backGull.jpg
 
Very nice. A clean and simple composition with room for the bird to fly in the frame. The polarizer worked well to darken the sky, give definition to the clouds , and to separate the gull from the background. The direction of the streaked clouds also enhances the feeling of motion. It all works well.

One minor point. The tail feathers and feet are sharp while the head is just a bit soft on focus. (yes, I am nit picking because it is such a good image). Ideally you want the head and eyes sharp. In an action shot that is much easier said than done. We are often at the mercy of where the camera's automation chose to focus. f/11 might be a little narrow on depth of field for 157mm. Increasing the ISO might allow you to use a smaller aperture, and with your dSLR you should not see much loss in detail. All of that said, the head is sharp enough so that it could be sharpened a bit in photoshop to perhaps yield slightly better image from this frame.

Overall you produced a very pleasing image. I like it.
 
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Thanks for the comments Chip, but to change the crop I would have to rework the entire image and doubt any crop change would be effective.

As you know Mark, over-sharpening is easily done, so here's a version of the shot with slight sharpening and some contrast enhancement to give the gull a bit more "snap".

I'm glad you liked it.

Black-backGull2.jpg
 
Nice use of the frame. I played around with some possible cropping, and can't really come up with anything that seems to work better (to my eyes).

Mark S is right about focus issues. I think additional, but very judicious sharpening will help this image -- it needs to be very crisp in order to realize its full potential. Autofocus is a great aid, but can be tricky to use -- the topic for a lengthy discussion. (I'm not going to start.)

Good shot.

G.
 
Gull

First, let me say this is a gorgeous image. Now let me nitpick. :)

I only do this because I have made this mistake myself, and want to save others the embarrassment. The name of the thread, "Seagull" is a no-no with birders. We all say it, but if we say it around birders, we lose all credibility. They can be referred to as "gulls" if there are many types together, but we can't call them sea-gulls. Singularly, you should say, "It's a Great Black-backed Gull", which you have done, except, and I could be wrong because I am no expert, but I think it is a Common Gull.

http://www.geocities.com/rainforest/canopy/6181/mari1.htm

http://www.geocities.com/rainforest/canopy/6181/canu1.jpg

I know, it's nitpicking. It's still a great shot! :)

KDT
 
Grumpy, thanks for the comments. Here's a version that's sharpened just about as much I can accept. Sometime images I feel are more sucessful with a softer rather than harder look, but one of the reasons for posting here is to get the feedback I'm getting.

Black-backGull3.jpg


Kevin, Judy and Emma, you're most likely correct about the terminology and identity. As you can tell I'm not much of a birder, but I surely do love them.

bhsf, what is a PITA water rat?

sunfish
 
Kevin said:
First, let me say this is a gorgeous image. Now let me nitpick. :)

I only do this because I have made this mistake myself, and want to save others the embarrassment. The name of the thread, "Seagull" is a no-no with birders. We all say it, but if we say it around birders, we lose all credibility. They can be referred to as "gulls" if there are many types together, but we can't call them sea-gulls. Singularly, you should say, "It's a Great Black-backed Gull", which you have done, except, and I could be wrong because I am no expert, but I think it is a Common Gull.

KDT
Click to expand...
Nice comments, now let me nitpick. I only do this, although I have never made this mistake myself, to save you and possibly others the embarrassment. The name "Common Gull" is not found in any North American bird guides I have ever seen (Audubon, Peterson, Sibley). We usually don't say it, but if we say it around birders, we lose all credibility. Perhaps you meant to say "Herring Gull" (Larus argentatus) which is the most common gull on the east coast of the US. There is a subspecies of the Mew Gul (Larus canus) found in Europe known as the Common Mew Gull (Larus canus canus) but that would be considered very uncommon in this area.

Here's the official list of the AOU
http://www.aou.org/checklist/index.php3
 
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Thanks

Like I said, I'm not an expert and I could be wrong. :) I had no field guides to check as I am not at home. I did a google search and came up with this site:

http://www.geocities.com/rainforest/canopy/6181/canu_d.htm

http://www.geocities.com/rainforest.../6181/mari1.htm

http://www.geocities.com/rainforest.../6181/canu1.jpg

Upon further inspection, the Common Gull appears to be a Mediterranean species. I should have paid more attention when trying to identify it. I was just looking at pictures. Poor ones at that on this site.

You are probably correct about it being a Herring Gull. I'm just pretty certain it's not a Great Black-backed Gull. I guess my point was that we should make every effort we can to identify photos correctly, (although I failed to prove that point by also not identifying it properly.) :eek: I'm sure the AOU list is the most credible.

KDT
 
We, the marine fishermen, call that common gull a Herring Gull. It likes herring, which we often use for bait. Boy are they a pain in the butt if they ever get hooked! (The trick is to wear leather gloves and gently wrap them in a towel before attempting to remove a hook...) Luckily this does not happen very often. The young are mottled gray, becoming white with gray spots and black wingtips as they get older.

Herring Gulls are scavengers, in that they feed on fish scraps that float up during a feeding frenzy (they may feed in other ways too.) Shearwaters on the other hand general indicate feeding fish, and 10-15 feet and catch live baitfish driven up by schools of feeding gamefish below.

PITA water rat = Pain In the A$$. Water rat because they steal bait, chum, etc., and are generally a nuisance, pooping all over the boat. Out of nowhere 20-30 will appear withing a minute of there being fish in or on the boat.

Tim
 
If nothing else, this esoteric discussion about what type of gull has been photographed points up the old (pre-Photoshop) notion that photos don’t lie but caption material attached to them is another matter altogether.

I like the sharpened version of the gull photo.

A sharpening technique I use most of the time is well described by Scott Kelby in one of his books on Photoshop. It allows for adding substantial sharpening without creating color halo effects.

In brief:

Open the image and convert it to the “Lab Color” mode. You should view and work with the image at 100% size.

Select the “Lightness” channel from the Channel palette window. (This is the “luminosity” channel. Selecting it will convert your image to a black-and-white rendition.)

Sharpen this image using the “Unsharp Mask” in the “Filters” menu.

“Unsharp Mask” manipulations begin by setting the “Radius” at 0.6 pixels, and the “Threshold” at 4 levels. (These are the starting settings that work for me – YMMV, as it is said.)

Move the “Amount” slider to introduce sharpening. (I often sharpen in the range of 200% or more for my newspaper repro purposes. Again, you will find what works for you and your purposes and tastes.)

Convert back to “RGB” mode and save.

By the way, when you have the image “Lightness” channel open, you also can make some “Brightness” and “Contrast” adjustments, often without substantial change (usually loss) of highlight or shadow detail in the color image.

I’ve found this sharpening technique salvages to “acceptability” a lot of action photos that are just shy of being sharp due to slight mis-focus or camera movement.

G.
 
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