Hi Brian, halcyon days, but I do wonder where another guy went, often posted with you, an older gentleman I think, but joined around the same time???
Not sure about the R6, unless budget dictated, I would have kept the R5 & gone for the R3, best of both worlds. R5 MK2 looks impressive and perhaps the true Flagship, the R1 is the R3 MK2, but neither a Flagship when you consider perhaps the Z9 or A1, but the Z9 I have been incredibly impressed with all round. The R5 MK2 will arrive sooner, so enjoy, just make sure you set it up correctly, but from what I have seen, it's not too far off the old R5, just with an additional menu. I would think about the battery grip, not the air cooled one, but it just feels nicer in the had and will chew up batteries. Stick a 512 card in, you will need it for sure and more storage space too, you will shoot far more than you think.
OK, back to the Q&A's :bg3:
This is pretty much the bkg as it was. I did take out a leaf from another thistle on the left after the crop but not much else to go for.
The edits is neither here nor there, it just seemed a bit sterile if you know what I mean, a bit like Jon's WP, but less so. I just felt it needed a little more variation in the BKG to add even more authenticity as I do think it looks a bit set up in its appearance, just my take, again others will happily disagree.
The image was indeed cropped to around 4k pixels on the long edge. Not extreme but I was pretty close.
My assumption based on 4086px wide was cropped to about 75% of the image which isn't huge as you said, it's just folk crop hard and then wonder why the IQ had gone. The R52 will be nice and if in the right light - awesome.
The image was exposed pretty well IMO. Here is the frame right next to it (I didn't want to reset my o.g. settings to screenshot)
The true way is with Raw digger, I bet you had another 2/3rds to go, the more you get used to reading the Histogram in camera the better, once capture that's it sort of, but generally you have a whole stop to play with. Lr & Ps will show things are clipped when they are not, they just can't render things correctly. I had an image where it looked blown on a leg, on inspection data was there but Lr could not fix, so you use alternative options.
1/4000 was this for BIF, dropped to 1/2500, ISO would be lower, better IQ to a degree.
The only global adjustments for color were WB, then I removed a bunch of yellow overcast globally toward the end. I asked you about this and you don't have an issue but most of my frames in sunlight have a yellow cast, which you have commented on the past (images need a slight adjust on the overall colors in the subject vs bkg many times), so I adjust that.
I'm trying to get my head around this Brian and I can't as I just don't understand
'removed a bunch of yellow globally'.
First question when do you do the WB as this may affect things.
It's hard to a degree in Lr ton achieve a good WB but, my WF has changed quite a while back so the whole set up has changed from Camera to PP, but don't get hung up about what I do.
If you are shooting in 'Golden light' it does create some awesome lighting, but to me you should still see the real colours if that makes sense, its hard to explain without seeing your raw, only then do you get to understand what you see and any additional casts you refer to and why you do things. I'm just thinking every action has a consequence and what you are doing, is the correct route????
If I take my Raws into Photo Mechanic for the first edit they look crap in terms of colour, just Walt Disney on steroids with a truck load of Contrast thrown in, but that's just the Software and I never judge it there.
Without getting too bogged down, just think about the image in layers and so the bird and seed head are one range of tones, the FG & BG are two other separate 'tones' in terms of light????
I get the points on detail on 4k. At some point weighing out sat of colors, extracting contrast, etc all factor in. Your Kingfishers had really nice colors IMO and I understand using diff blend modes helps with that, which I now use more and more. And making sure to set the curves layers to luminosity if not selecting a different blend mode in order to ensure there's no color shift.
I never really edit it on the MBPro because of the screen, edits or just to see are fine, but for me it all looks to glossy and Hollywood. The KF were easy, but I feel I would over bake if I had a 4k screen, somehow the non 4k reflect more true colours to my eyes and these have been looking at images since the mid '90's albeit advertising in the first half, so perhaps are either tired., or just used to seeing the rendering.
Layers, Curves & Blend modes to a degree, but I fear you are following a huge rabbit hole feeling the images need more in depth, where in some cases they don't and can look better with less.
My Leopards had minimal adjustments and about three adjustments in Ps, the ones in dappled light not posted here took a little more time, but again not complicated in execution but all simple manipulations. So, I would question each step Brian, is it needed, why are you doing it, will the image benefit or not?