Lone Mute Swan

[John Goldman]

40D
100-400@260mm
f6.3
1/1250
ISO250

Went home and put on some dry clothes after lying flat on my belly in the snow.

Increased saturation, cloned out some poo and a stick, slight crop for composition. Yes, I see the clone tracks, now. Have to do a better job next time.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Whites look good, I assume no blinkies or clipping on right side of histogram. John, are you are shooting manual (no EV), I might bump up ISO and increase shutter to get fine detail - just a suggestion good as is too.

Love the feet on ice, neat look - maybe move things off center some - rule of thirds. There is an interesting thread in the Ed Forum that shows how to use layer-grid in PS - looking good.

[Gail Spitler]

Hi John - great angle; well worth the wet clothes. Lots of detail on the bird, so fine exposure of all the whites. Love the fact that the low angle really emphasizes those big feet. My only suggestion to perhaps cropping a bit off the top.
Oh yeah, did you know that Mute Swans can be very aggressive birds and that lying on your belly in front of one might be unwise? ;)
Cheers
Gail

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

Sharp with good exposure on the white, love the low angle shot that shown excellent environment, really like how the swan is standing on the sheet of ice. This image is well worth the wet clothes. I might try to brighten the body up a bit, seem a bit grayish to me. Not sure what is on the left hand edge of frame at the separation between ice and snow, a beak of another bird?

[John Goldman]

Whites look good, I assume no blinkies or clipping on right side of histogram. John, are you are shooting manual (no EV), I might bump up ISO and increase shutter to get fine detail - just a suggestion good as is too.

Love the feet on ice, neat look - maybe move things off center some - rule of thirds. There is an interesting thread in the Ed Forum that shows how to use layer-grid in PS - looking good.

Thank you for your time and comments, Jeff. Yes, I shoot almost always manual. F6.3 to blur the BG, could have gone to 5.6. No blinkies. I thought 1/1250 shutter would be plenty fast using 260mm w/IS, you say I should go faster?
I tried a crop putting the head at the rule of thirds upper right junction and thought I had too much area above and in front. With that large body below and to the left, seemed off balance, to me. Placing the bird more to the left also made too much area in front, for me.

Thanaboon, the object on the left edge is a bit of the stick remaining after I cloned out what originally extended almost touching the birds tail. Thought I had cleaned it out sufficiently, apparently not.

Thanks, Gail, for the warning. Next time I'll have an escape route planned before I prostrate myself in front of one.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

John,

Of course sharper is the key and this is a sharp image. I like the f/6.3 with this lens and the quality associated with the ISO setting and only mention the possibility of higher settings as an end to getting more detail. I think you did well here and do not think you should have changed it, just providing points of discussion that come to mind and trying to help - nice picture.

Where did you focus and did you use center sensor?

[Gus Cobos]

Hi John,
Good advise given, you have good details in the whites, and the color rendition is good,would offset your bird a little to the left side of the frame, and lighten the area around the eyes just a tad...looking forward to your next one...:cool:

[John Goldman]

Thank you all for your inputs. Your advice is valued. I believe I have become a better photographer because of the very valuable information and instruction I have received from this forum.

Jeff, I used the top focus point(in landscape orientation) on the birds eye. For me, absolutely, the eye must be in focus for birds. Now that I think about it, any subject with an eye, the eye has to be in focus.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Nice job on focus point, wanted to ensure you did not fall in love with center sensor and put things in the middle. That was one of my early flaws, finally I started moving to other sensors like you have done. Now with the 7D, I use dynamic zones often - thanks.

Looking forward to seeing more from you.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Hi. I have a bad habit of going into too much detail. Sorry. Here I go again!
Good image, great view point, and I really like the ice. I almost always shoot manually as well. Keep photography as simple as possible is my motto. Who needs all that exposure compensation stuff when at best it is only a guess? For that matter, take a test shot, look at the LCD, check the histogram, adjust, and you are good to go. Pretty simple, and one other thing; expose to the right.
The bird is too centered, as mentioned, and using the rule of thirds is a good compositional option. There are actually a number of other compositional frameworks, like linear, diagonal, and symmetrical, that are nice to have in mind when composing a scene through the viewfinder. One might work better than another. Crop to fine tune composition later in post processing.
I wouldn't rely on focus points with a stationary subject; use center weighted, lock focus, compose. The problem with focus points, other than center, is subsequent image possibilities often occur too quickly to change whatever focus points you have selected, or more likely you forget to change it and loose a shot. A bird in flight is a different story. It is also where focus points really are an advantage.
Too slow a shutter speed will cause blurriness, of course, but increasing shutter speed for sharpness has no effect past a certain point. I think 1/1250 is fine here, and you could actually get by a bit slower. I am assuming hand held, and the shakiness of your hand has something to do with it. With IS the 1/1250 sec is roughly equivalent to 1/2000 sec(thinking 2 stops and my math could be wrong). The problem with cranking up shutter speed that is not needed is you are sacrificing DOF that you might need and lower ISOs.
Image sharpness is more complicated than just shutter speed. Lens acuity and proper focus, intervening atmosphere, focal length and distance to subject, all have an effect.
The F6.3 is appropriate as well. A large bird, and I assume you want all of it in focus. As far as not being able to blur the background, you could decrease the depth of field and get a blurred background but the whole bird may not be in focus. A trade off. A background can be blurred in post processing, out of focus areas of a subject can not. Hope I've been helpful. regards~Bill