The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
I continue to photograph at the local park that has large fields for short-eared owls and also a small pond where I picked up the shot of the kingfisher. The owls should migrate soon starting in early March.
Specific Feedback
Any comments appreciated. The last two shots are starting to suffer from a fairly large crop and slow shutter speed for bird in flight.
Technical Details
Canon R7, 400mm f4 DO IS II, 1.4x extender III
Settings vary. First shot (kingfisher) is ISO 640, f7.1, 1/3200s
Shot of owls in sunlight: ISO 1600, f6.3, 1/2500s
Shots of owls in low light at ISO 6400, f5.6, 1/1000s
All hand held
I am so jealous of your owls. They look so great and those wings are HUGE. What hunters they must be. The last one looks a bit pink on my screen and the ones with sky look a bit cyan. But oh, the action you catch. Really great stuff.
@Kris_Smith@Diane_Miller
Thank you for the comments. I wasn’t exactly sure how to handle the white balance in the last three images. These were taken before dawn as the sun was about to break on the horizon thus the various colors/lighting to deal with. I try to show colors in my images as I originally viewed them and not bring them back to a field guide view of the subject. Given that, I decided to use a cloudy white balance as that seemed to give me the best rendition of what I viewed that morning. Any thoughts on how you might have handled the situation differently?
Given that all our eyes/brains are different in the way we perceive colors, I usually start with the bird itself and make sure it is presenting the colors it should. Then I look at the surroundings and do the same. Just yesterday I noticed in certain light on auto wb, the new rig has a slight cyan cast which I will probably have to adjust in camera, but for now I’ll do it in post. I noticed it in the sky and the colors of the bark and background more than the bird, but it’s there.
Then I’ll sometimes leave it for a few hours/days before looking at it again. That can trigger my brain to seeing things from a more fresh perspective. Also I will cycle through the background colors in Lightroom - from white to black and see if that affects how I perceive the colors. That usually works well, especially with snow or other extremely light or dark scenes.
Yes, it’s all very subjective, and our eyes accommodate to a more neutral appearance when the camera doesn’t. With any camera I’ve had, the WB settings are generally awful, both in-camera and in the raw converter. And of course there are subtle differences in the various color profiles in the raw stage. One of the best ways to get a good balance is to compare several images, as you have presented here. I doubt there would/should be that much difference in a set in a similar location and time frame. Just looking through a filmstrip in LR (or whatever) is helpful. A calibrated and profiled monitor and consistent room lighting is key.
These are another set of amazing flight images Allen. I really like the owl swooping down with it’s back to the camera. The kingfisher is so good! Great discussion thread about WB and calibrations in this thread too.
