Eastern Meadowlark

[Joseph Przybyla]

Dottie and I drove to and along 10 Mile Grade Road in Zolfo Springs, Florida early this morning. Not as productive as it has been, saw many Caracara's but not in a position to photograph. We did find this Eastern Meadowlark that cooperated for a while. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Nikon D500
Nikon 80-400mm F/4.5-5.6 VRII AF-S ED image captured at 400mm
1/1250 F/5.6 Matrix Metering EV +1 ISO 1600 Auto 1 WB HH using the car as a blind
Post processed in Lightroom Classic CC, Photoshop CC 2019 and Neat Image for noise reduction
Cropped for composition and presentation

[Isaac Grant]

Excellent pose, perch and background. Really a top notch Meadlowlark image. I would brighten it up a little, warm it a touch and apply more NR to the background. Easy fixes for a beautiful photo and one I would love to have of this species.

[Jonathan Ashton]

A fine shot, I like the pose and colours.
Jo suggest have another look around the bill, I suspect the mask for noise reduction is not quite ideal.

[Krishna Prasad kotti]

Beautiful Shot with Background colors.

I do see some issues with Noise Reduction and Sharpening. I see some halo effect.

Thanks for sharing

[Joseph Przybyla]

Excellent pose, perch and background. Really a top notch Meadlowlark image. I would brighten it up a little, warm it a touch and apply more NR to the background. Easy fixes for a beautiful photo and one I would love to have of this species.

Thanks Isaac, I have a repost that I worked on that is brighter but not sure if it is as warm as you had in mind. I think a lot of that is computer display to computer display, how the settings are. Thank you for viewing and commenting.

[Joseph Przybyla]

A fine shot, I like the pose and colours.
Jo suggest have another look around the bill, I suspect the mask for noise reduction is not quite ideal.

Hi Jonathan, no masking on any part of the image, pretty much straight out of the camera. I never mask the bird for noise reduction. After tweaking the exposure in Lightroom I set the sharpening to 0 before converting the image to a 16 bit TIFF in Photoshop. I set the sharpening to 0 so that the noise that Neat Image determines is not influenced by sharpening. I use the Auto setting in Neat Image most of the time as 60% on the whole image. I don't see anything strange around the beak, maybe just a quirk of the light at the time of capture. Thanks Jon, for viewing and commenting.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Here is a repost pretty much straight out of the camera. In Lightroom I set the White Point and Black Point and add a small amount of Vibrance.

[Jonathan Ashton]

The repost shows much less of a rim around the bill, but I still see a slight rim there.

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Beautiful bird against a perfect background Joe. I like the tones on the legs & tail more in the OP where they look more 'real'.

[annmpacheco]

Hi Joe, Happy Thanksgiving. I prefer your OP, it has more detail, and I do notice a slight white outline on top beak, I'm okay w that. I would like to see more sky less perch. It appears too bottom heavy and congested, maybe push bird to the right more as well, all personal I know! Love a meadowlark singing away, and this image doesn't disappoint!

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Great calling pose, Joe. I too prefer your original post because it does convey early morning soft light IMO. There also is more depth and richness in the OP, plus that background retains its beauty. Don't see any rim/white outline on my monitor.

Geoffrey




http://500px.com/geoffreymontagu (http://500px.com/geoffreymontagu)

[John Mack]

Very nice. Love the pose and the composition is well balanced. Great two toned background.