ILE: My Home Turf (and and news of an amazing sighting...)

I wake up at my home-office at Indian Lake Estates (ILE), Florida about half of each year.   (Don’t ask me where the estates are….)    In any case, ILE consists of 450 modest homes on 4,000 acres surrounded by 17,000 protected acres on the Lake Wales Ridge.  My late masseuse, John Lynott, told me that he saw a Florida Panther in the yard of the local church about 20 years ago, and there are Panther Crossing signs on SR 60 that I travel regularly.   On some mornings and even more rarely, on some afternoons, I do get out for an hour to photograph.  The tame Sandhill Cranes make good subjects year round, and in early spring there are always some chicks about.  In several months they grow to handsome colts.   The current issue of My Big Backyard (i.e., Ranger Rick for younger children), featured my image a large chick taking a sip of water and a spread of baby sandhill images inside.  Do not laugh: they pay very well. 

On the morning of March 15 I created two images that I liked; each required some special handling in Photoshop.  The first image was of a displaying Boat-tailed Grackle.  I photographed it from my vehicle near a golf course pond with the Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens and the EOS-50D on the BLUBB (the BAA Big Lens Ultimate BeanBag).   I began photographing the  bird from a spot just off sun angle when I noticed that if I moved forward a few yards I would be able to separate the three twigs and later, clone out the two distracting ones.  I moved the car forward right to sun angle; fortunately the vehicle did not fall into the pond.  The problem was that the very best pose was created right off the bat.  The solution:  I borrowed the foot from a later frame using a Quick Mask, covered the merged twigs with the borrowed foot, rotated and scaled the selection, and finally erased the two extra twigs with the Clone Stamp.

Here is the final image:

I found an Osprey sitting on a low post with some dried moss for its nest.  Lens and set-up same as above.  ISO 400.  Evaluative metering -1/3 stop: 1/1000 sec. at f/8.  With the 50D you need to be more careful about burning the whites in bright sun than with the MIII bodies. 

When I viewed the image on my laptop (where I optimize all of  my images) I was dismayed to see a large nail in the post.  Using the Clone Stamp, the Patch Tool, and a series of Quick Masks, I eliminated the nail and shorted a single long stem of grass that had inesected with the bird’s body.  

Here is the image out of the camera:

All of the techniques that I used for the cleanup (as well as our coplete digital workflow and dozens of great Photoshop tips) are described in detail in our Digital Basics File.  You can learn more here:

http://www.birdsasart.com/digitalbasics.htm  

Finally, here is the final image:

Notice the perfect look-back head angle.

Oh, by the way, when Jim, Jim Litzenberg,  my right hand man, came back from his morning walk (except in summer, I walk in the afternoons), he told me that he had seen a Florida Panther just two blocks from home….   All  of you who have dealt with Jim on the phone know that he is personable, efficient, helpful, and friendly.  If you would like to meet him, click here:

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=31956

Lastly, here is a killer image of me in action created by Jory Griesman, click here:

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=32199