Purple Sandpiper Portrait

[denise ippolito]

• Canon EOS 40D
• EF500mm f/4L IS USM
• ƒ/9
• 500mm
• 1/200s
• ISO 250
• Flash not fired
• Fri, 04 December 2009 9:34 AM
• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

Canon 40D
500 mm
ISO 250
1/200 SEC. AT F/9
-1/3 EV
Tripod
Barnegat Lighthouse, BG is water and rock
I liked the bokeh but I did some smoothing of it just a bit

 

[Lana Hays]

Denise
Wonderful head turn and detail. My first thought was that this was from Barnegat as I remember how friendly some of them were there.

 

[Dan Brown]

Beautiful shot Denise! Great light! I love the sharpness and the seperation between the bird and the BG!

 

[Harshad Barve]

oh my god , what an image this is , SPECTACULAR
TFS

 

[Jim Fenton]

Great light, pose, sharpness, all of it.

Parts of the bill look a tad hot which should be easy to tone down.

The one thing that detracts a bit is that the BG is kinda blocky and grainy in the dark to light transition areas....perhaps some Gaussian blur or an averaging blur to smooth it out?

 

[Rob Miner]

She envisioned, She labored, Perfection!


Rob............

 

[Arthur Morris]

Man, I mean Woman, I hope that we do not freeze to death or get blown into the ocean when I visit. This head portrait is perfect. I had never realized before seeing this image that the bill is quite similar to that of Western Sandpiper in shape and structure (but obviously not in color). It even had the flattened distal end that looks as if somebody squished it between their fingers. The sharpness is incredible.

 

[denise ippolito]

Thankyou all for your comments. Much appreciated.
Jim, I did like the BG and I imagine it is a personal preference thing. I didn't notice any hot pixels on the bill-but I did add some warmth to the image in LR2 so it is possible.I will check it when I get home. Thanks.
Artie, Thankyou for the kind words. You will freeze

 

[Bill Dix]

A real beauty, Denise. Exquisite detail, light, color and a lovely composition. Doesn't get better than this!

 

[George Scott]

Beautiful image with incredible light and detail. The highlight on the upper half of the eye seems to draw my attention, but I'm really reaching! Awesome.

 

[denise ippolito]

Bill and George, Thankyou both for your kind words. I appreciate them very much.

 

[Fernando Cerra]

beautiful compositon and detail ! congratulations !

 

[Bonnie Block]

Holy sandpiper, Denise! Great work on getting it just right!

 

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Exquisite image!

 

[Kiran Poonacha]

Beautiful portrait this, nice details, light and comp Dennise...

 

[denise ippolito]

Thankyou all for taking the time to comment. Much appreciated.

 

[david cramer]

Bill looks ok to me. This image is quite nice, with a great pose, detail and light. If it were mine, I'd fix the little blotchy area in the bg, but it's not a big detractor.

 

[bill kominsky]

Great shot and absolutely perfet detail and sharpness, wonderfully done Denise.
I do have a question about how you smoothed out the BG, love to know, thank you.

 

[denise ippolito]

David and Bill, Thankyou both very much.
David, I did like the bokeh effect and felt that further smoothing out would look unnatural. But I do understand it may not appeal to all. Thanks.
Bill, Thankyou. I used a soft brush at 26% opacity and chose one of the colors from the BG just to soften the bokeh a bit.Thanks.

 

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Wonderful portrait Denise!

Love the sharpness and perfect HA. BG is very complementary.