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Cardinal in Winter - from just a bird in a tree to an "oil painting"
Aug 30, 2020 21:51:56   #
robertjerl Loc: Corona, California
 
Northern Cardinal - Cardinalis cardinalis

Teaching at a large year round high school on A track I had from the week before Christmas to the first Monday in February as my Inter-semester Break of 10 weeks, I also had 8 weeks in summer. (We had a 7:20 to 3:10 school day to get in the required class time per year-CA counts it by minutes of instruction and the lunch break doesn't count.)

Anyway, I took the family on a trip to visit the Baháʼí House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois, and my family in St Louis and Western Kentucky. This Northern Cardinal with a couple of others-male and female-was hunting food in the leaves and brown grass in front of my Aunt and Uncle's farm house outside Paducah, KY. When he flew up and perched in a small tree I got a fairly clear shot of him from a distance. They wouldn't let me get real close so this is probably less than 25% of the full frame.

Actually in that area when I was a kid everyone called them "Red Bird", I wonder why? I didn't learn the real name was Cardinal until I was in school and read about them. And of course the "Cardinal" comes from their color, the same as the robes of a Roman Catholic Cardinal.

The brown and red tinged females ( with crest also) are among the few female song birds that sing - often longer and more complex songs than the males and even while on the nest. Some think this is to remind the male to bring her some food, guard the nest etc. During breeding season they get very aggressive about defending their nest territory and have been known to spend hours "fighting" their own reflections in defense of the nest site.

In Western Kentucky were I grew up we had two of these "Punk Rock Hair Do" birds. The Cardinal in bright Red or brown and red and the Blue Jay in Blue, black and white. (They are actually brown with special cells in the feathers that only reflect blue light.) And yes, I do wish I had some pictures of the Blue Jays also.

Sigma SD10, Sigma 100-300 @ 300, 1/400 @ f/6.3, ISO-800, hand held, Jan 1 2006 (neat New Years Sight) in early afternoon.

#1 OOC
#2 cropped and processed in Sigmas converter (sigma raw > dng), then in LR, and then PS where the "oil paint" is a choice under "filters", clicking on that resulted in...
#3 as an "oil painting


(Download)


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Aug 31, 2020 06:30:30   #
robertjerl Loc: Corona, California
 
Some pointed out the oil painting filter killed most of the catch light in the eye, here is a version with an enhanced catchlight


(Download)

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Aug 31, 2020 10:35:07   #
Guyserman Loc: Benton, AR
 
Very nice. Would love to see a female Cardinal with the oil painting effect.

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Aug 31, 2020 14:35:26   #
robertjerl Loc: Corona, California
 
Guyserman wrote:
Very nice. Would love to see a female Cardinal with the oil painting effect.


Well I live in Southern California and we don't have Cardinals or Blue Jays so unless the family takes a vacation to where they are found and I luck out I am not getting any pictures of them.

I borrowed a watermarked Adobe Stock Image off line and gave it a try.


(Download)

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Aug 31, 2020 14:51:00   #
robertjerl Loc: Corona, California
 
I just checked the range maps, normally Cardinals only make it into Arizona and Southern Baja.
But there have been rare year round sittings in this part of California - believed to be colonies descended from escaped pets or birds released by people trying to get them established in California. Maybe I have hope of getting shots of them after all. I will have to research where they are seen most often. It seems to be mostly in San Bernardino County just north of me.

Further research, there is a sub-species or maybe species (hasn't been decided yet) in NW Mexico and the SW United States called the Sonoran Cardinal and they seem to be spreading into California. It says at feeders they love Black Oil Sunflower. I buy feed mixes with those and have one feeder that is nothing but Black Oil Sunflower - maybe there is hope of seeing some in my yard before I reach my expiration date.

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Aug 31, 2020 15:29:14   #
captivecookie Loc: Washington state
 
I like all three versions. St a rt with good technique and your conversion will most likely be good as well.

On the Adobe one, I laughed when I realized the watermark was treated as well.

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Aug 31, 2020 15:36:08   #
robertjerl Loc: Corona, California
 
captivecookie wrote:
I like all three versions. St a rt with good technique and your conversion will most likely be good as well.

On the Adobe one, I laughed when I realized the watermark was treated as well.


That is how that filter works, everything gets the treatment. Some other apps that produce that effect can follow the orientation of parts of the engine - they do it with AI.

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