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I love ravens...smartest birds in the world. I lived in the mountains and watched them do some uncannily intelligent things.

This is my raven shot. I an not fond of the processing, so I am looking at different things to do with it. But, I do love the look in his eye...
 

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Hi Jack.
Plain Jane, but very willing to strut her stuff for you! Nice series.

Hi HB.
Very nice shot, good pose, good background and nicely processed.

Hi clbayley.
I really like the bird, am I correct that it is the busy bokeh that you are not happy with? Bringing your dissatisfaction to attention made it stand out, otherwise it would probably have been fine. We all appear to be our own worst critics and should let go a bit! :)
So true about the intellect, I watched the one I was shooting and his friend a bit further away behind him study me and my clumsy field craft as I edged closer, each move of a short step the threat level was re assesed with head tilting and a slight change in stance and then they would relax. Eventually his friend cracked and flew off, I got much closer to my featured bird before he followed his friend.

Cheers, Graham.
 
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clbayley said:
I love ravens...smartest birds in the world. I lived in the mountains and watched them do some uncannily intelligent things.

This is my raven shot. I an not fond of the processing, so I am looking at different things to do with it. But, I do love the look in his eye...

That's a very nice shot, clbayley. I agree with you, ravens are very intelligent birds.
 
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Thanks Click and VB!

I am disappointed in the blue cast on the bird. I admit I am very inexperienced with photo processing so sometimes slam sliders too far. I have been playing and learning and hope to come up with a new version of this picture some day.

As far as the busy bokeh, I actually really like it (except the light branch above its head). It represents a harshness that I think goes with the bird and it's meal.

I watched 2 ravens make a fool out of a dog. My neighbour's tied their dog to a long rope and one raven would taunt the dog while standing just outside the reach of the rope. The other raven would then steal the dog food. The birds then traded places. Poor dog didn't have a hope.
 
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clbayley said:
I watched 2 ravens make a fool out of a dog. My neighbour's tied their dog to a long rope and one raven would taunt the dog while standing just outside the reach of the rope. The other raven would then steal the dog food. The birds then traded places. Poor dog didn't have a hope.

;D ;D ;D


Ravens 2 Dog 0
 
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clbayley said:
Thanks Click and VB!

I am disappointed in the blue cast on the bird. I admit I am very inexperienced with photo processing so sometimes slam sliders too far. I have been playing and learning and hope to come up with a new version of this picture some day.

As far as the busy bokeh, I actually really like it (except the light branch above its head). It represents a harshness that I think goes with the bird and it's meal.

I watched 2 ravens make a fool out of a dog. My neighbour's tied their dog to a long rope and one raven would taunt the dog while standing just outside the reach of the rope. The other raven would then steal the dog food. The birds then traded places. Poor dog didn't have a hope.

It reminds me of a film I saw of Kites at the Ngorongoro crate in Kenya. At the top of the crater was an ice cream van and tourists eating their refreshing ice creams. One kite would flyby the tourist, missing them by inches - when they were distracted by this 'near miss' the second kite would steam in and steal the ice cream from their hand.
 
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clbayley said:
I am disappointed in the blue cast on the bird. I admit I am very inexperienced with photo processing so sometimes slam sliders too far. I have been playing and learning and hope to come up with a new version of this picture some day.

That magenta cast on blacks often happens when there is no obvious white area on the frame that the camera can use to set true white balance - I see it a lot on geese and ducks with black bills.
in Lightroom, I pick the white balance dropped and search over the frame for a patch (no matter how small) of white or grey - what you are looking for is an area where the RGB values are very nearly the same (in LR these are shown on the graph that pops up, other programs show it on the histogram). Click on that patch and it often resolves the issue.
But be aware that ravens have a lot of blue in them anyway so an alternative is to adjust the HSL values of the blue channel.
 
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Recently read of scientists upgrading the intelligence level they associate with even the smallest birds. The "bird brain" derogatory statement is rather unfortunate.

I may have mentioned before that at Haida Gwaii the traditional two clans were the eagles and ravens and folklore abounds with myths about ravens. Our crows are no slouches either. We humans seem to lack a lot of the capabilities that these amazing creatures have - intriguing.

I love the Raven photo too.

Jack
 
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Hi clbayley.
Well there you go proof positive that some times what you don't like others do, I thought the blue was the iridescence of the feathers well caught in the shot! I only picked the bokeh because of your comment about not liking something and it was the only thing I could see which may have caused dissatisfaction, I think you are probably right about it complementing the scene.
Love the story about the dog, it must have been hilarious to see.

Cheers, Graham.

clbayley said:
Thanks Click and VB!

I am disappointed in the blue cast on the bird. I admit I am very inexperienced with photo processing so sometimes slam sliders too far. I have been playing and learning and hope to come up with a new version of this picture some day.

As far as the busy bokeh, I actually really like it (except the light branch above its head). It represents a harshness that I think goes with the bird and it's meal.

I watched 2 ravens make a fool out of a dog. My neighbour's tied their dog to a long rope and one raven would taunt the dog while standing just outside the reach of the rope. The other raven would then steal the dog food. The birds then traded places. Poor dog didn't have a hope.
 
Upvote 0