Kookaburra & bush

[caseyargall]

hi, This is from my first photos taken in quite a while, i was unable to take pictures for a while due to personal reasons. I must admit i was back into it really quick absolutely loving having the camera in my hands. Having said that i'm still a beginner and have alot to learn.
This Shot was taken around 2'oclock in the afternoon but it was stormy and there was very little light... because of that i increased the iso.
It was taken with me on my veranda and looking across at the Kookaburra on the branch of the tree.
This has no crop.
medium/high noise removal.
ISO: i can't figure out how to check this but i was for the most part using 1600.
Aperture:F/10
Shutter: 1/200
focal: 200mm
No tripod
Flash: canon 430exII on ettl.
Camera: canon 1000d with tamron lens.

thanks from Casey.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Casey - 1600 ISO it was (Checked in the EXif Data)
Nice Aussie bush scene with a iconic bird.
Use of flash looks good - F10 was probably a little overkill here - could have shot this wide open and blurred the Background some more.
I would try a alternative crop trying to move the bird from the centre of the frame - think Rule of Thirds and see what you can come up with.
Looking forward to seeing more :)

[arash_hazeghi]

Agree with Lance, f/10 is not a good choice of aperture, for shots like this you want to maximize the shutter speed by opening the aperture for better sharpness. Wide aperture would also help separate the subject from BG in busy environments like this.

[caseyargall]

Thankyou both, i will keep this in mind(the aperture thing) when i go to take some more.
The rule of thirds thing is a good point.
your advice is much appreciated.

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

Nice HA and good idea on the use of flash. Agree about the aperture, opening up more to blur the busy background, plus you can get higher shutter speed or lower ISO too. Also agree about tighter crop.

[Joe Brown]

Very nice shot. You had to be very close.
Further to the above comments according to how it looks on my monitor I feel it could also use a boost of brightness and contrast and a touch of sharpening.

Joe

[Dave Mills]

Hi Casey, not much to add to comments given. I would suggest the removal of the light leaf on the bottom and the bright area by the birds chest...

[David Thomasson]

Pleasing pose and habitat. Echoing several others, I would clone out some of the brighter distracting background
spots. With some masking, you can brighten the subject and foreground details, and dim the background a bit ... which
will have the effect of pulling the subject away from the busy background and yet leave the background intact. Something
like this (I wasn't sure about the bird's color. In some pics, these guys have a slight magenta cast in their light feathers.
In others, the whites appear to be neutral):

http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/7813/kook.gif

[Alfred Forns]

Great re post as usual David !!!

Hi Casey Small birds in frame normally look best in the corners, could go with the crop David did or just cropping form bottom and right !!! ... small tweaks make the difference Glad to see you posting !!!

[caseyargall]

Thanks everyone for the kind words,tips and advice :)
And David, thanks also for the repost, yes you stayed true to the birds colour, i've never done "masking" i just downloaded the trial 3 days ago of photoshop elements eight, i had 6 but never used it then i replaced my pc with a mac...can you do "masking" in elements 8 or is this a photoshop thing?

[David Thomasson]

Thanks everyone for the kind words,tips and advice :)
And David, thanks also for the repost, yes you stayed true to the birds colour, i've never done "masking" i just downloaded the trial 3 days ago of photoshop elements eight, i had 6 but never used it then i replaced my pc with a mac...can you do "masking" in elements 8 or is this a photoshop thing?

Adjustment layers (curves, levels, hue/sat, etc.) all have layer masks on them. When you make those adjustments,
you should use adjustment layers rather than changing the actual image pixels. For other layers, Elements doesn't
have layer masks, but there's a free add-on here (http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pselements/qt/layermasktool.htm) that allows you do use masks. I used it with Elements 3.0 for several
years, and it works great.

[caseyargall]

Adjustment layers (curves, levels, hue/sat, etc.) all have layer masks on them. When you make those adjustments,
you should use adjustment layers rather than changing the actual image pixels. For other layers, Elements doesn't
have layer masks, but there's a free add-on here (http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pselements/qt/layermasktool.htm) that allows you do use masks. I used it with Elements 3.0 for several
years, and it works great.
Ok, Thanks David :)