Spring has sprung, 2014

A few clues...


1 - Local park no longer monochrome


2 - Vivid reflections, plus tufted duck


3 - Spectacular views just as easily available from terra firma (Devil's Dyke, West Sussex)


4 - Avocets out in force, but not necessarily on speaking terms (WWT Welney)


5 - Swimming lessons (junior mallard hybrid at WWT Arundel)


6 - Non-strutting peacock


7 - A peck on the cheek (almost, at least - white-faced whistling ducks, WWT Arundel)


8 - Reservoir ducks?

Absolutely heartwarming images, a further boost, if one is needed this glorious day that summer is on its way!

It may be a personal preference by myself, but do the images need a dip in the brightness?

This image for instance:



I'm not comfortable giving any sort of criticism so please view this as constructive
PS excuse the pixelation!

Constructive suggestions always welcome, Karl!

The shots look OK on my home PC and work Mac, but it's possible that my eyes need recalibrating. I didn't do any intentional brightening in PP - simply gave them a quick 'autofix', which made a modest difference to a couple of camera jpegs but none at all to others.

I'll have another play, in due course.

I trust my retina screen with my life, seriously, my retina screen is way more accurate than my Mac monitor

You've given us a real slice of spring there, and it was clearly a much quieter and sedate photographic day than you're usually used to!

The hang-glider and the two kissing ducks are the standouts for me.

Regarding the brightness, I actually think they are pretty close to what we would see in reality - the light is very intense and glaring in these conditions. However, I believe we as photographers have become accustomed to a 'what the meter saw' rendition of this type of scene - ie:, slight under-exposure, which is what most meters would come out with I think.

This is not always an issue, and indeed can benefit saturated subjects and those where high contrast is, well, high It would be interesting to know what your settings were - they look to me like slight over-exposure, maybe +0.3 - 0.5 ? But it depends on the camera of course.

In my opinion they could benefit from the smallest adjustment - I'd use a PS levels adjustment layer, give a small reduction on the middle input slider, and then set the blend mode of the layer to 'luminosity' - this will avoid losing the saturation. Be interested to see if it works.

A lovely and varied set Simon. The last one of the Ducklings is just superb!

Regards
David

No compensation dialled in, Nigel - at least not intentionally. I tend to use aperture priority most of the time (even with racing cars, except when panning). WB set to auto, sharpness firmed up and pretty much everything else on factory default. These were mostly taken with my K-5 IIs, although the paraglider was taken with a K-5.

Those PP tips are way beyond my usual sphere of exploration, but I'll have a play...