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Israel Fichman R.I.P | all galleries >> Birds >> Shorebirds. > Moon cormorant.
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10-NOV-2005

Moon cormorant.

Nikon D70
1/1000s f/7.1 at 400.0mm full exif

other sizes: small medium original auto
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Guest 24-Apr-2008 18:03
Beautiful pic....voted

Mine picture (though straight out of Camera) doesn't come any closer to it..
http://www.pbase.com/dkmrig/image/90492478/large

regards
Dheeraj
Guest 20-Nov-2007 20:21
interesting effect......stunning image
Guest 30-Oct-2007 09:40
Well whatever you have done to it it is a great shot V
Guest 15-Oct-2007 18:06
amazing image. good work!
Guest 10-Apr-2007 18:44
great (photoshop) work , my friend !!
cool pic, great idea.
jessie_wang27-Feb-2007 15:53
Again amazing...
Colleen Prohaska28-Dec-2006 08:45
Well this sure is a high flying bird. Provocative image.
Guest 12-Dec-2006 20:09
Great image!
Guest 11-Oct-2006 13:44
Nice work.
Jeff Carey 12-Sep-2006 12:58
One doesn't need to be a professional photographer to discern this picture. Of course the moon shot was cropped and the bird was layered. Migratory birds like the Cormorant does not fly alone. They fly by groups. Mr. Fichman, being a skilled photographer, did post this picture only for fun. And truly it's beautiful without minding the unreality of the picture.
yannick Beunard07-Aug-2006 10:42
Very beautiful !
Thomas Spurr06-Aug-2006 12:59
great shot.............................
arminb26-May-2006 09:48
let's say, it's a beautiful picture, both shots. to get so much detail out of the moon is great alone, to catch a cormorant in flight not that easy either, at f/7.1 that DOF? Well, who cares, it looks good :o)
marie-jose wolff25-May-2006 09:01
fantastic shot !
Guest 14-May-2006 16:44
JP,

No ordinary SLR lens can take a picture of the moon as vivid as this unless the camera is hooked up to a telescope. That kind of photography is called Astrophotography.

Have you seen a moon with your bare eyes as big as the moon in this picture? The answer is NO. Have you seen a bird in the sky as big as the cormorant in this photo? The answer is YES. Now look at this image here. How come that the moon becomes so big and the the bird's size remain the same? You cannot even see any detail of the bird's head yet you can see the scars of the moon surface thousand of miles away. Now how can you say as a photographer that a picture is beautiful when the picture itself is defective? I viewed your site and I can say that your images are real ones direct from the camera no touch-up whatsoever. In other words there is beauty in reality. And that is photography.
Guest 14-May-2006 06:15
Don't know why you guys are so sure that this is photoshopped?

By looking at the exif:

Phase of the moon was correct for Nov. 10, 2005. Time seems to be incorrect, becuae sunset was at 4:42p in Tel Aviv on that day, and this exif showed 5:10p. However, I think the colok on his camera is off by a couple of hours, becuase the bird shot could not be taken after sunset, either.

Exif does not show ISO. If it is ISO 400, f/7.1 at 1/1000 sec seems to be correct exposure for this moon.

There was a comment about the size of the moon. This is most likely to be a cropped picture, so we don't really know how big it is relative to the full frame.

There was also a commnet about the details of the moon. 400 mm is more than capable of capturing this level of details. One common problem of not capture enough detail of moon is due to over-exposure (by using auto exposure). You also won't get this much detail if you try to take the picture at full moon due to front lighting.

I am not say that I know for sure that this photo is straight out of camera. I am just saying that we should give him the benefit of doubt without any hard evidence.

Even if this is photoshopped, it is still a very nice image.
John Forest 08-May-2006 13:48
Hey guys there's no question the photo had been photoshopped. The exif info refers to the shot made on the bird w/out the moon of course. But let's give Fichman the credit of having done this. Very few Pbase members can do this anyway. Although the picture looks faulty and unbelievable to us, it looks good and beautiful to others.
Brian Shaw 05-May-2006 04:41
This photo looks lovely. But Mr. Fichman, in spite of his being a very good photographer,
certainly looked down on the ability of other PBase members by posting this photograph without telling exactly that this was done with photoshop. Some members are already fooled as shown on their comments below. Mr. Fichman knew fully well that shooting a moon requires a long exposure yet he used only a shutter speed of 1/1000s w/c is only good to freeze a flying bird but not the moon. Excellent and professional photographers have a phrase for this kind of photo - "photography blasphemy".
Robert Lee 04-May-2006 23:32
Ken Yamamoto is right. The scars on the moon surface are very visible. Yet, the exif indicates only a 400mm focal length was used. I have a 500mm Sigma with 2X extender and many times at full 1000mm focal length I could not photograph a moon as large and with a vivid surface of the moon like the one in the photo.
Ken Yamamoto 04-May-2006 10:06
Obviously done with photoshop layering. The moon and the sky is one photo taken with super telephoto lens thus the size of the moon. The bird was from another photo and layered unto the first photo thus the contrasty color between the bird and the background. If this picture were taken by a camera, and considering the angle of shot, the bird should have been much larger than the moon as the bird is nearer to the camera lens. Note that a super telephoto is needed to have a size of the moon as this.
Jean Chiasson02-May-2006 02:16
Good shot
Sam X20-Apr-2006 17:13
wow what a shot...excellent. voted
Guest 24-Mar-2006 13:25
Excellent treatment
Andy Jones19-Mar-2006 11:04
If this was taken as one shot in camera it is briliant, if it is the work of Photoshop et al it is still very good