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Crash Landing


Crash Landing
Photo Information
Copyright: John Plumb (JPlumb) Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 618 W: 158 N: 896] (2904)
Genre: Animals
Medium: Color
Date Taken: 2007-01-08
Categories: Birds
Camera: Nikon D200
Exposure: f/5.0, 1/750 seconds
More Photo Info: [view]
Photo Version: Original Version
Date Submitted: 2007-01-23 22:12
Viewed: 3674
Points: 16
[Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note
This is a landing by a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo that can only be described as a Crash Landing. The Landing Approach seen here was a thing of beauty to watch, then he went and did this. I don’t know if it was due to the pressure of being under the watchful eye of the camera, or if he is just a natural born clutz. In any case he walked away from this one, none the worse for wear.

In Australia, the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo’s range extends throughout the northern and eastern mainland, and Tasmania. A small population has become established around Perth.

They are typically found in a variety of timbered habitats and are common around human settlements. They stay in the same area year round.

It’s diet normally consists of berries, seeds, nuts and roots. Feeding normally takes place in small to large groups, with one or more members watching from danger from nearby perches.

Much of this from: http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/finder/display.cfm?id=48

This guy was flying in to join another group I was already photographing. There were about 15 cockatoos feeding on the ground at the Royal Botanical Gardens. His landing approach was not bad, the actual landing as you can see was less than spectacular.

Workflow was as follow:
The shot was taken in Raw and after establishing the range for shadows and highlights it was saved as an NEF file.
Work continued with white and black points being established in a levels layer. Two curves layers were added, one for the RGB layer and one for colour. The changes in each were marginal. I wasn’t satisfied with the shadows so I duplicated the background layer and reduced shadows further by another 5%. In this same layer I reduced the noise. The file was saved as a TIFF at this point with layers intact.
The new TIFF file with the mode set to 8 bits/channel was cropped to the present format, then resized, then finally I applied smart sharpen and saved it as a JPEG for this post.
loot, jeanpaul, zenitlady, pierrefonds has marked this note useful
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Discussions
ThreadThread Starter Messages Updated
To zenitlady: Birds EmbarrassedJPlumb 1 02-16 01:21
To loot: Cockatoo ClumsinessJPlumb 2 02-13 11:09
To Maite: Doing a Show for the CameraJPlumb 1 02-13 00:47
To arfer: I Meant to do ThatJPlumb 1 02-13 00:34
To jeanpaul: Un Autre CockatooJPlumb 1 02-13 00:32
To jonathan_hart: ThanksJPlumb 1 02-13 00:24
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Critiques [Translate]

hi!
very good composition;)

Salut John
C'est une autre merveilleuse photo que tu as réalisé avec ce perroquet
les couleurs et les détails ainsique la présentation sont parfaits
Merci et au revoir....JP

  • Great 
  • arfer Gold Star Critiquer [C: 2731 W: 0 N: 0] (0)
  • [2007-01-24 20:32]
  • [+]

Hello John

I think this bird was heard to say "I meant to do that".Good marks for approach but low marks for the landing.Nicely captured ,good details and well composed.TFS

Rob

  • Great 
  • loot Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 5524 W: 722 N: 4163] (11276)
  • [2007-01-24 23:55]
  • [3] [+]

Hi John

Maybe this guy was just a good actor and hoped that his ‘clumsiness’ might earn him a juicy berry or some nuts. Maybe he was just counting on a slide landing but misjudged the traction of the grass (chuckle).

Anyway, the action was well captured and presented with the fast shutter speed freezing the moment. The composition, colours, and details all came out very well while you did excellent work on the exposure to capture the contrasts on the white plumage of the birds.

Good work and TFS.
Regards
Loot

PS. Sorry I took so long to update my critique, but I don’t know what’s going on here in South African. For the second time this week more than ½ of the country had a total black-out that lasted almost 7 hours. After the power was restored the Internet still remained unavailable and I don’t know what time last night it came back on-line, but at least this morning everything seems to be fine again.

  • Great 
  • Maite Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 998 W: 65 N: 1270] (5199)
  • [2007-01-25 10:00]
  • [+]

Definitely it wasn't due to the mist! Ha, ha. In fact I think he was doing a show for the camera.
A very beautiful picture and excellent job, John.
Thank you very much for sharing.
Best wishes
Maite

Hi John! Birds always look so embarrassed when they flub their landings, don't they? I'm trying to learn more about PP, so will study what you have done here. Cockatoo is well detailed, great clarity. Good job, John! Thanks, Linda

Hi John,

A good POV of the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, the photo has a good composition, sharpness and nice colors. Thanks for sharing.

Pierre

Hello John,
Well, I guess life isn't always easy, not even if you're a Cockatoo, hehehe!
And the bird looks like ashamed, like he knows his shortcomings will be exposed for the world...
Nice catch of the situation!
Greetings,
Pablo -

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