(If backgrounds have been removed, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Excellent depth of field, with only the tip of the tail going slightly soft, John. To me, it feels a bit tight, but you don’t mention what lens you used or whether it was a zoom. I like the background. Exposure looks good except on white patch above the near leg that looks as if it’s a bit hot. I like the pose a lot.
Hi Dennis, thanks for your comments, with which I agree. Burned down the perch to lower brightness but missed a small section. Been working with different settings as suggested by David Schoen. This shot was intended to capture wing spread at 1/600sec. with my 100x400 telephoto set around 200mm for a wider field in order to catch landing/takeoff. Have not quite figured out the process yet but working on it. Maybe handheld is the solution.
Wayne
I like the position of the bird and the color. Background works very well. That said, getting a little more room is helpful as this feels a little tight. One of the things that Keith and Nate taught me is that when you have a shot with the tail closest to you, the tail really needs to be tack sharp in addition to the head and face. There’s just a tad bit of depth of field issue with this one for the tail. At F7 .1 or F 8 this would have probably been very sharp. If you’re not sure crank up the depth of field and the iso. The other thing that could be an issue in this one might be your shutter speed. The tail could be slightly blurred because of tail motion. I try to use a minimum of 1/640 of a second although I get much better results with 1250th or more. You mentioned in your comment you are trying to do some takeoff and landing shots; you need a minimum of 2500th or more… Yes it will raise your iso and you will have to be very good with your processing to eliminate the noise.
I love the composition how the bird posed John. I agree with the others on the bright spot on the bird and allowing more room. Nice thing about a zoom is backing off quickly. In this case I would have some room on the left side showing the direction the bird is looking at. Awesome colors and details.
This is pretty good. I like the eye contact, and the blue on the bird is beautiful. The perch is also a good size, and the background is nice. I think critical focus is on the wing, which left the head and tail slightly soft. If your goal is to shoot these guys taking off or landing, you’ll have to shoot at 1/2500 minimum. If it were me, I’d set up a perch above them so that they fly straight up and down or in some sort of predictable pattern. Then, set your focus on the perch (or slightly past the perch if they’re flying in and out from that direction) and turn autofocus off. Let the shutter rips as they come in and take off. I’m not sure whether it’s even possible to track these guys with autofocus.
Oh, and I’d shoot a little looser, which will help in two respects. One, it’ll prevent you from clipping wingtips, and two, it’ll increase your depth of field because you’re further from the bird.
Thanks Lyle, Tried to tone down the blown out part of the bird with Photoshop to no avail. The bird had a discolored breast upper and a very clean bottom area. Tried to burn down the blown out area and tone down using Photoshop white slider. All made the bird unnatural to me. Your suggestions on catching the wingspread is just what the doctor ordered. Answered my question on the technique. Thanks so much.
Wayne
