[Dave Stargazer]

A peacock in all his splendor out looking for some action!

This with the Z 400mm f/4.5 but at f/13 (!) - I have some f/4.5 captures, but preferred the less bokeh'd tail features on the left.

Question: Is this WILD or MILD? The peacock "lives" at the zoo, but is free to roam, and even leave, but stays because it's reliable food. To me, it's not fully wild - some weird hybrid of wildness/enticement. Are the birds at the feeder "not wild"? Probably "less wild" to an extent. Thoughts?

Oh, and I posted very high res over on Flickr again if you want to click over (I'll put the link in a comment - probably need to click on the image a couple of times to see the full res there).

Cheers!

...Dave...

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[Dave Stargazer]

Link to the very high res post on Flickr - click a couple of times to see the full res - Cheers!

https://flic.kr/p/2oLaxtT

 

[Icarus]

Love the depth from head to tail and the detail in the feathers.

 

[ChrisSinSeattle]

Dave, a great and beautiful photo

Chris S.

 

[NorthernFocus]

Really well composed. Nice job.

 

[trapper12]

Beautiful photo

 

[Dave Stargazer]

Love the depth from head to tail and the detail in the feathers.

Thank you, Icarus! I did a bit of burning on feathers behind the head and neck to get a little more subject separation there, and enhance the 3D effect. Cheers!

 

[Dave Stargazer]

Dave, a great and beautiful photo

Chris S.

Thanks, Chris! Peacocks are kind of cliche, but it's only a short time that they are in full plummage - I was about to walk by, but... ok! haha

 

[Dave Stargazer]

Really well composed. Nice job.

Dan - thank you so much. I did try a variety of crops for this - the SOOC 3x2 from the Z9 was quite good, but I wanted to go for my more usual "wallpaper" crop of 16x10 or 16x9, and I thought this worked. Cheers!

 

[Dave Stargazer]

Beautiful photo

Thank you, Trapper!

 

[NorthernFocus]

Dan - thank you so much. I did try a variety of crops for this - the SOOC 3x2 from the Z9 was quite good, but I wanted to go for my more usual "wallpaper" crop of 16x10 or 16x9, and I thought this worked. Cheers!

Cropping in post is the easy part. Try this, try that... IMO the key is the angle that you chose in the field with the perfect V formed by the bird's neck and the green feathers on top of the tail. Placing the head/eye and that part of the tail on the thirds lines(whether in field or post) really works.

 

[Charles Loy]

Double WOW - nice

 

[Dave Stargazer]

Cropping in post is the easy part. Try this, try that... IMO the key is the angle that you chose in the field with the perfect V formed by the bird's neck and the green feathers on top of the tail. Placing the head/eye and that part of the tail on the thirds lines(whether in field or post) really works.

Thanks, Dan - I try to 'get it right' in the field, but with moving wildlife that can be tough lol! Plus, I rarely use the 3x2 of FX for the actual, finished work, and cropping is one of the first things I do, often using the Rule of 3rds guidelines, but usually just as a reference for balance, not as a limiter, which I did here. One thing I concentrate on in post is guiding the eye around the image - so I'm pretty ruthless in that haha Cheers!

 

[Dave Stargazer]

Double WOW - nice

Thank you, Charles!

I'm getting good response over on Flickr, so thanks to everyone that went over there to see full res!

One funny thing is that I started with my color enhancement techniques on this capture, but they did *almost nothing* lol! So I skipped them entirely. Peacocks so amazing!