In the Pantanal region of Brazil where I bring photo tour groups to photograph wild jaguars and exotic birds (the next trip is in November 2018), there is a giant sinkhole that is home to about 50 pairs of mating blue and red macaws. They are constantly flying -- some very close to the observation area and some farther away -- and it’s very exciting to capture these stunning birds in flight. I originally photographed this group with a 500mm f/4 telephoto plus a 1.4x teleconverter, giving me 700mm of focal length, against the distant wall of rock, and I never really liked the background. So I made a precise selection of the macaws in Photoshop and composited them with a shot of the entire sinkhole to give the picture the proper context. This shows what my eyes could see, but with the limitations of optics, I couldn’t show a picture like this with either a wide angle or a telephoto. My settings for the birds were 1/8000, f/10, 1600 ISO, and I used a tripod with a Wimberly gimbal head for the ease of managing the large lens and for panning to follow the birds in flight.
6 Comments
Dec 18, 2017, 7:09:41 AM
Vera - Jim I love this picture.
Dec 18, 2017, 6:13:42 AM
Jim - Thank you, Vera.
Dec 17, 2017, 4:53:39 PM
Jim - Bryan, As you know, there are many ways of doing things in Photoshop. I don't do it your way -- and I've never used Gimp. I simply make a selection of the subject with the various selection tools (such as the pen tool), and then feather the edge one pixel and paste the subject (in this case the birds) into the new background.
Dec 17, 2017, 4:49:48 PM
Bryan - Jim, that's kind of what I suspected. Another question I have concerns your cutting out of the birds. I use Gimp, and in that I generally, if the background contrast is right, make a copy, turn that to black & white, then use that as a layer mask. Have you tried that, or just found it less satisfactory?
Dec 17, 2017, 4:04:32 PM
Jim - Hi Bryan, It was an oversight, actually. My usual shutter speed for birds in flight is 1/3200.
Dec 17, 2017, 2:58:15 PM
Bryan - Jim, is there a reason you had your speed so high?