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I may have edited it something like this . . . mainly trying to pull out the natural colors
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@austinvinar, I really enjoy your close-up pictures of nature, especially those of birds and flowers. Although I’m no expert in photo editing, I could offer a suggestion. Anyone on Lenspiration, please feel free to correct me!
As I studied your picture, I noticed several distracting elements (the stone, dirt, leaves, etc.) in the lower half of the picture. I’m not really sure if they should be eliminated, but I thought that blurring those objects could help bring out the bird better as the subject, especially since it is camouflaging with the background. I plugged your picture into GIMP and used the Gaussian blur filter to blur the lower half of the picture (see the picture posted below).
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Thank-you, @Joshua for the tips. I will have to pull it into Gimp and see what I can do. Although I wouldn’t blur it out quite so close to the bird for a number of reasons.
First, If the rock was out-of-focus that close to the bird, its head would also be out-of-focus.
Secondly, I feel that the bird is a little bit crowded.
Thanks for the tip though, I will definately put it to use! =)
Just looking at it now, maybe I didn’t blur it quite enough. The leaf on the left it is almost like your eye is trying to identify it.
I think you did a good job in blurring the surroundings of the bird. Perhaps, I would have slightly increased the level of blur to the lower third so that the leaf won’t be as obvious. When I compared your picture with the one I edited, I realized that I had added too much blur: both in the level of blur and in surface area (I think I blurred too much of the rock). As a result, the bird seemed to be “detached” from its surroundings. I think one of the main aims in editing these kind of pictures is to allow the bird to blend in with its surroundings, while, at the same time, preventing the surroundings from distracting the observer from the subject.
When I compared your picture with the one I edited, I realized that I had added too much blur: both in the level of blur and in surface area (I think I blurred too much of the rock). As a result, the bird seemed to be “detached” from its surroundings. I think one of the main aims in editing these kind of pictures is to allow the bird to blend in with its surroundings, while, at the same time, preventing the surroundings from distracting the observer from the subject.
I agree. Though I am not a big fan of heavily edited wildlife pictures, I prefer @austinvinar’s last picture over the original he posted. It looks like if it was shot with some kind of f/2.8 lens… 🙂
However, I find this composition to be rather centered. Personally, I would crop a part of the left side and maybe a bit of the bottom and the top to place the bird more on the left of the picture, as @jamesstaddon did.
Thank-you very much Mr.Quebec and Joshua Ong for the tips. Yea, it was shot with no f/2.8 lens, my 800mm mirror lens instead. I may try cropping it, although I like to leave as many pixels as I can in it. And I also may try blurring it a tad more. Thanks!! Austin
You’re welcome!
my 800mm mirror lens instead
Is it a Rokinon?
- This reply was modified 54 years, 9 months ago by .
I’m surprised! Mirror lenses usually don’t get a lot of stars in their rating but although I see just a resized version of your picture, it looks quite sharp to me!
Also, your bokeh is very clean, with almost no ”donuts effect” that seems to plague mirror lenses’ bokehs. Is this whole donut thing exagerated, or is it something to be careful with these lenses?
- This reply was modified 54 years, 9 months ago by .
OK, You have to be very careful in the focus(manual), and sharpen it a tad, but it does good enough for me right now.
Question. How did you guess Rokinon?
About the bokeh, it absolutely does create donut bokeh, but I don’t mind that personally. I may post a 1:1 crop later.
Question. How did you guess Rokinon?
Samyang and Rokinon are two leading manufacturers of 800mm mirror lenses. Well, not exactly, since Samyang is actually controlling Rokinon and other brands (you may have heard of Vivitar and Bower, which are also controlled by Samyang).
I’m pretty sure Canon doesn’t make mirror lenses, so it leaves me with third-parties options.
And I recalled hearing you mentioning Rokinon on Google+, so it was enough evidence for me to dare to ask the question 🙂I may post a 1:1 crop later.
I’ll be very curious to see that!
- This reply was modified 54 years, 9 months ago by .
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