Phal's house of pics

First proper test of a cheapy 10 stop ND I bought a few weeks ago. It vignettes rather a lot with longer exposures but does ok considering it was a tenner :) I actually added a little vignette back in to the remaining crop in PP so what you see here could have been a lot more even.

Longsun by Phal44, on Flickr
 
Went out today in the hope of maybe catching a glimpse of a Kestrel (after all it turned out to be a kestrel lol) or Kite etc but bumped into this girl (I think?) instead. I spotted her sat on this hedge as I was driving up to the car park so I had to stop on a tiny road and fetch my camera from the boot to get a few shots.

I was fairly close (10 meters) with nothing but tarmac between us but she didn't seem too bothered. After getting a few shots I decided to stop blocking the road and go park.

The car park wasn't far so I headed back down towards where I'd seen the Sparrowhawk and spotted her again a good few times. The area gets quite a lot of dog walkers so I guess she's used to the hoomans to some degree.

I still haven't tweaked the microadjust since I got my 7d2 and I think I had the wrong focus mode enabled which didn't help but I got a few keepers :)


This was one of the first by the roadside

Curious Sparrowhawk by Phal44, on Flickr


And this was then I found her again later after parking

Chilling on a branch Sparrowhawk by Phal44, on Flickr


Low and slow Sparrowhawk by Phal44, on Flickr


It's like I got my own little Falconry display :) she keps sitting on hedges and looking around before swooping down to the ground to check something. I never saw her eating anything but she kept checking for something?

Turn and flap Sparrowhawk by Phal44, on Flickr

Not quite in focus but I liked it anyway :E

Catching the imaginary snack Sparrowhawk by Phal44, on Flickr

Can't do that with my neck :(

Broken neck Sparrowhawk by Phal44, on Flickr


Majestic looking Sparrowhawk by Phal44, on Flickr


It's not as if the grass is long there either and yet she was checking for something... Eating bugs or worms maybe?

Actually not on a Golf green! by Phal44, on Flickr


Cool landing :)

Flared Sparrowhawk by Phal44, on Flickr


Not a Sparrowhawk...


Not a Sparrowhawk by Phal44, on Flickr
 
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The_Abyss said:
The lagoon is a great spot - I've always wondered why most of the houses backing on to it are so tatty though.
Click to expand...

Yeah I guess there aren't many that look like they're owned by some uber rich people. I guess most of the rich ones live further down the beach to the east!

This is the first time I've seen anything in the lagoon other than Ducks/Swans/Cormorants and Gulls so it was a pleasant surprise.
 
Now you mention it I have seen a few little Egrets there but they're usually in the river instead where it's tidal.
 
So I got this shot:




Crappy Ropebird by Phal44, on Flickr







That's a cropped version of the original and I thought "hmmm I like the bird since it's nice and sharp and I love the reflected light under it's wing but that stupid rope is in the way!". I know stuff like that can be removed but it's a PITA to do it in Lightroom at the best of times and dealing with the wing detail is difficult.




I started off with just the spot removal tool in Lightroom and I was able to do the underwing part as the light there lends itself to blurriness and weird lighting but as soon as I got to the top wing in the sun I knew that just wouldn't work.




I don't use Photoshop much other than for the HDR wizard or Panoramic wizard and I've had a few stabs at trying stuff in the past but not much. Tonight I thought I'd have a go and this is what I've ended up with.




Frankenbird by Phal44, on Flickr







I kept the removal I'd already done on the underwing. It's not perfect but looks alright if you don't look very closely. The only method I could thing of was to copy bits of the same wing to replace the rope parts but then I decided to check my other shots. I'd gotten a few more shots on the same flyby and I found one with the wing in a similar position. It wasn't the same but was as close as I was going to get!




I selected it and pasted it before reshaping it to fit better etc. I'm sure it could be done better and feel free to post any tips or guides but I can only spend so long before I get frustrated lol.




Lastly I also cut off the feet and found some feet from another shot which were similar and got those on! That was a lot easier :) Annoyingly the top leg looks a bit askew when I check it on Flickr but in Photoshop/Lightroom they look fine. There's a line a little way up the leg but that's not where the other leg was stuck on :) Might be something to do with the fact that both legs are the same leg pasted twice lol. The shot I used was from a different angle where only one leg was really visible so I pasted it twice.




All in all It's not too bad I guess!
 
I want to do a Photoshop course or something lol :) There's a lot to be done in there and it would be nice to be told where to start instead of just poking about in the dark.

There's plenty online but I'm just lazy!
 
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