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Great Pied Cormorant

Great Pied Cormorant (Image ID 47361)
Photographed byJim Schultz on Wed 11th Mar, 2020 and uploaded on Fri 30th Jul, 2021 .
Resolution1800x1400
Viewed106
ID47361
CommentNB: Not being entirely happy with my initially submitted posting, I desided to do a MkII version, in which I nearly exclusively worked on reducing the shadows in the neck of the main bird. A lot of the work was done dot by dot in Photoshop, and I think the final result was worth the effort.
The Australian Pied Cormorant is predominantly a marine species, it can be seen in inland waters over a great deal of mainland Australia, but in Western Australia as a rule it keeps to the shoreline. They are a common sight at Woodman Point and Spit near Fremantle, WA; here they generally come up to dry their wings at the rocks that are furthest out in the water, and they do not often hunt here. However, when the tide is low, fortunately, good opportunities to get closer to resting birds arise, and it also becomes possible to better get in-flight captures, when the cormorants pass over, or fly in to land on the off-shore rocks. In this image I was lucky enough to capture a small flock of Great Pied Cormorants in flight. I think, as a whole, the image works though some of the birds are out of focus. I find it worth mentioning that the image was taken before Olympus introduced their ‘Bird Recognition software’, which made focus finding much easier with this rig, especially of birds in flight. I find that working with the Olympus, it’s much of a balance act, and that images become noisy, if you go much above ISO-400, and in this instance I had the lens wide open at f4 to get a high enough shutter speed to freeze the fast flying cormorants. Time of capture: 07:04.
EquipmentEquipment used: Olympus OM-D E-M1X with Olympus 300mm f4 IS Pro ED M.Zuiko lens
Camera rig support: Velbon Neo Carmagne Carbon Tripod with Manfrotto Ball Head Art 498RC2.
Technique: Standing up near the tip of Woodman Point about 20m from water’s edge.
Camera settings: Exposure Program/Shooting Mode: ‘Manual’; shutter speed 1/3200 sec, f4 & ISO-400. Metering Mode: ‘CenterWeightedAverage’; Focus Mode: ‘C-AF and Drive: ‘Sequential shooting (3-frame)’. Image Stabilizer on (S-SIS AUTO) & In-Camera-Sharpness +2.
Post Processing: FastStone for viewing & sorting, Olympus Workspace for Tif conversion and metadata; Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw/CC 2020 for a 123% crop, selective work and general post-processing incl. of selective noise control and removal of quite annoying halos. ‘Australian Bird Guide 2019’ for data, distribution confirmation and colour checks.
LocationWoodman Point, Western Australia
Keywordsin flight, adult
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