This is a cocoi heron I photographed in the Pantanal in Brazil. They are quite easy to photograph in flight because, compared to so many other bird species, they are slow fliers. In addition, they are large birds and therefore it's easy for the autofocus mechanism to lock onto the heron without losing focus. This image represents another composite in my 'impossible depth of field' series'. I selected the bird with the quick selection tool in Photoshop and then tweaked the selection to make it perfect with the lasso tool, working at 200% magnification. I was quite close to the heron when it took flight, so I used a 100-400mm Canon telephoto set to 200mm. My settings for the bird were 1/3200, f/10, and 10,000 ISO. Note that both the background and the subject were both illuminated by diffused light. I reduced the noise with Neat Image software.
3 Comments
Nov 19, 2018, 10:39:48 AM
Jim - Hi Rohinton, I explained the pen tool several times in my free monthly eMagazine , Photo Insights. Check out the recent issue -- there is a subject index of previous issues in the last few pages of the publication. Look up 'Photoshop -- pen tool' and you can read how to use it. If you don't already subscribe to Photo Insights, you can see the Nov. 2018 issue by clicking the link at the bottom of the home page of my website.
Happy Thanksgiving to you, too, Richard.
Nov 18, 2018, 11:38:01 PM
Rohinton Mehta - Wow! I wish I could extract a subject from its background as well as you do.
I remember that once, some time ago, you had explained how to use the Pen Tool for such purposes but I seem to have lost that document.
Nov 18, 2018, 10:43:55 PM
Richard Benton - Great series, love this & I am always very impressed that you have time to do this composite while on assignment with your class? Happy Thanksgiving Jim & many thanks for all the things you do during the year,R.