1\/6400, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\nBut on the afternoon of February 12, 2016 this female kingfisher actually hovered for a few moments while she was close to me and I was able to get a couple of shots I like. This is my favorite of the two because it’s sharpest and has the best detail and\u00a0I like the wing position\u00a0and\u00a0classic hovering posture.<\/p>\n
I didn’t post this photo back then because there’s two catch lights in her eye (neither one is very bright). Often that doesn’t bother me but in this case I didn’t like the effect because I found it distracting. I could have cloned one of them out but I’m always hesitant to do that so I just passed over the image and then forgot about it until last night when I stumbled upon it again. This time I decided to try a different technique to mitigate the effects of that second annoying catch light.<\/p>\n
Sharpening during processing enhances highlights such as\u00a0catch lights and makes them more obvious to the eye\u00a0so in this version of the image I removed the top catch light from the sharpening mask before I sharpened the bird\u00a0and not sharpening that catch light made it significantly less bright and annoying to me. Enough so that I decided to post the image. In fact here you have to look fairly carefully to even see it. When it’s left in the mask and\u00a0sharpened like everything else it’s much brighter than the bottom catch light and that combination is what I found distracting.<\/p>\n
I realize that many of my readers think I’m too\u00a0picky\u00a0but for me little things can make a big difference either way and this was one of those times.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometimes a minor tweak in processing technique can salvage an otherwise unusable image.<\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n