Pterodactyl II!

[Loose Canon]

I had another one or two from today's encounter. Guess I'll put them up in different threads since that seems to be recommended!

Oops! Seems like I lost it....

[Loose Canon]

I aologize!

Technical difficulties beyond my control! Plus got a little mouse-happy!

Anyway, here is what I tried to post before!

[arith]

Superb.

[Steve S]

Excellent , terry. Good colors,sharpness, and contrast. Really pops from the background. Very well done.

[Bobobird]

Pops it surely does. Nice angle, separation etc. Very well done.

[cliffmccartney]

Well done Terry. Super sharp and great detail. Hard to criticize - the only thing I would consider is maybe recovering just a touch of the shadow area of the log in the background. Super shot!

[Loose Canon]

Superb.

Hi Steve! Hope everything is going your way, man.

Thank you for that. And thank you for taking the time to view. Been a while since we have spoken, sir.

Excellent , terry. Good colors,sharpness, and contrast. Really pops from the background. Very well done.

Steve, thank you sir. I have enjoyed your shots of this species and have always admired them (along with everything else you do). I was just happy to get to spend a little time with this new friend.

Pops it surely does. Nice angle, separation etc. Very well done.

Thank you, Bobo. I appreciate that.

Well done Terry. Super sharp and great detail. Hard to criticize - the only thing I would consider is maybe recovering just a touch of the shadow area of the log in the background. Super shot!

Thank you so much Cliff. I will take your suggestion and thank you for offering it. I may have gotten a bit carried away with trying to manipulate the (not that great) lighting in post.

For what I consider a truly beautiful beautiful shot of one of these guys have a look here. By RogerCook.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Terry,

I concur with Cliff's thought, my minor addition would be to suggest a slightly looser crop - it just feels a tad constrained on the top (mainlY) and right.

However, do bear in mind I'm suggesting a 1 or 2% improvement in the otherwise excellent image.

Cheers,

[Loose Canon]

Hi Dave!

Thank you for the suggestion and I’m glad you brought this up.

In recent memory I have read a thread or two here on cropping regarding this. For the last several months I have been shooting for and cropping to what is standard print/frame sizes in the US. This one is a 5:4. I am increasingly finding that if I do this instead of custom “cropping for the web” that I have less problems along the road, have to save less files, and have to do less work in post, or re-post if the need arises.

More and more I am finding that I may have a need to go to print. As a recent example, I had to do several prints for a display that was requested. Now why anyone would request a display from me I have no idea, but I went for it anyway and just didn’t ask! Which meant frames/glass/spacers/hardware as well. It gets pretty costly to use frame/glass sizes that aren’t readily available and need to be custom cut. The printing costs aren’t so bad, but getting them finished can be a killer. And I’m not up for doing a lot of finish work myself. Plus, if I shoot portraits for folks, they typically want prints that they can go to a typical US dept. store and find a “ready-to-use” frame.

Standard, readily available, go to the local shop and pick up frames in the US are basically (other than snap sizes) in inches:

8x10- Which, if you do the math- 8/10 = 0.80
11x14= 0.78
16x20= 0.80
11x14= 0.78
20x24= 0.83
30x40= 0.75

So if you stick pretty close to the 5:4 aspect you are pretty safe!

What blows is these are not even close to most of our camera’s native aspects!

Then there is commercially available pre-cut matting that goes with these sizes. Get the matting, get the next size frame up and you’re in! Don’t ask me! Just the way it is set up to be the easiest and most commercially viable I suppose!

So in light of this, could I safely assume that if I moved the crop frame left a shade and down, hopefully relieving the constraints you noticed (right and head), while keeping the same aspect, would that be more in line with what you are seeing, sir?

[jprzybyla]

Beautiful image of a beautiful bird. Well done Terry.

[jeeperman]

Yep, another step down that slippery slope. Well done, Terry. You have isolated him from the background well and he is nicely sharp and has grat color. Now to catch him with a big fish in/on his sword of a bill . =}