Ibis in flight. First post

[Toan Huynh]

I used to post my photos on facebook. Then I was thinking about a bird forum that could help me learn more

I'm not sure how should I start on this forum. I've seen too many good images (compare to mine) in this forum "Eager To Learn" so I was wondering is there an acceptable level for the photos posted here?




This photo was taken in Sydney, on a sunny day.

Canon EOS 550D, Canon 55-250mm at 250mm, f/6.3, 1/640 sec, ISO 200

Is this photo acceptable in this forum? If not I can delete it.

[Doug West]

Welcome Toan...don't worry, everything is acceptable.

The Ibis looks sharp, so you did good there. The back of the neck looks
a little hot, but with the sun, that's understandable. As far as your specs,
1/640 is kind of borderline for me when it comes to flight. Increasing the
ISO to 400 would've helped a little.

The one thing you want to watch
out for is wing position. If you would've caught the Ibis with a more upright
wing position, the shadow wouldn't be so bad.

By the position of his feet,
if he was coming in for a landing, he might've been gliding in anyway by
the time you captured this, so there might not have been much you could've
done with the wing position.

The second thing is time of day. You didn't say what time of day you shot this,
but look to shoot early in the morning or late in the afternoon when the light
will be softer. The closer you get to noon and with full sun, the harsher your
light will be.

Hope to see more from you.

Doug

[Toan Huynh]

Welcome Toan...don't worry, everything is acceptable.

The Ibis looks sharp, so you did good there. The back of the neck looks
a little hot, but with the sun, that's understandable. As far as your specs,
1/640 is kind of borderline for me when it comes to flight. Increasing the
ISO to 400 would've helped a little.

The one thing you want to watch
out for is wing position. If you would've caught the Ibis with a more upright
wing position, the shadow wouldn't be so bad.

By the position of his feet,
if he was coming in for a landing, he might've been gliding in anyway by
the time you captured this, so there might not have been much you could've
done with the wing position.

The second thing is time of day. You didn't say what time of day you shot this,
but look to shoot early in the morning or late in the afternoon when the light
will be softer. The closer you get to noon and with full sun, the harsher your
light will be.

Hope to see more from you.

Doug

Thanks for your comment Doug
You're right about everything, it was 1:30PM and the bird was gliding to a branch near by. Due to the noise of my camera at ISO 800, I mostly use ISO 200 or 400. I thought that lighting on that day was good enough so I used 200. Now I realize that I have to keep ISO 400 most of the time.

My gear is so limited. I need very good light to deal with small aperture and low ISO. But I may try shoot more in the morning and afternoon following your suggestion

[Satish Ranadive]

Toan,
Wel come to BPN !!!
You have captured the flight pose very nicely.Nice flight pose and good head angle and eye contact.
You have got very nice advice above.
Like to more images from you.

Regards,
Satish.

[Iain Barker]

Welcome to BPN Toan

I to was unsure if my images were good enough to post but I have found all the advice friendly and helpfully no mater what the quality of the image.

I like your image and agree with the advice already given. I think I would also consider cropping some of the space at the top of the image.

Also the background looks like it has some noise have you sharpened the image? If so did you sharpen just the bird or the whole image? Sharpening the whole image increases noise on the background and Is better applied to just the bird. Similarly noise reduction should only be applied to the background. I am still learning how to do this myself and others on here would be able to advise you on this more than me.

[Toan Huynh]

thank you for your comments

I did sharpen the whole image in Lightroom. I don't know how to sharpen only the bird. Is there a way to do it in Lightroom? because I dont have Photoshop.

[Iain Barker]

In Lightroom you use the masking slider with the other sharpening sliders.
If you hold down the alt key then click on the slider the whole image will turn white. This is where the sharpening will be applied.
If you then slide the slider parts will start to go black which is where the sharpening will no longer be applied.
It is usually possible to have most of the bird white and most of the background white. I think in this case there will be some sharpening to the background due to the trees but it should be less noticeable.

[John Chardine]

Hi Toan- Welcome to BPN and to Eager to Learn. Just to comment on your question about acceptability- as mentioned, anything goes. And there's a bit of a trade-off going on. On the one hand you want to present your best work in a public forum like this, but on the other, we learn by our mistakes and you will learn more by posting less than optimal images.

Now to this image. You already have some great comments above. Re. composition, if I assume the bird is landing, I would like to see more space below the subject than above. Essentially you need to give your subject room in which to move. I'm also struck by the very blue underwing. This could be toned down by some desaturation.

[Bob Miller]

Toan...Nothing wrong with posting this image...We all are at different points in our skills and we all appreciate someone who is willing to learn. Good advice given above. I would only stress the importance of good light. Afternoon light is so harsh and hard to work with. Raise your ISO to at least 400 when shooting birds in flight. You want to have a shutter speed of at least 1/1000 sec for birds in flight. I would also add that very good shots can be gotten on bright overcast days....the light is soft and you can shoot in it all day long.

[Toan Huynh]

Thanks Bob, John and Iain. I never know that I can do that much with an image after saving them to my computer.
I repost the image with different crop, noise reduction in the background and the blue spot under the wing removed.

[MohsenVahedipour]

Hi,

Only thing that I can add to the above comments:
You did great job with this very slow AF lens to shot a BIF.

[Toan Huynh]

Hi,

Only thing that I can add to the above comments:
You did great job with this very slow AF lens to shot a BIF.

I did see the bird coming from far away, so I was just waiting for it to fly into the frame.
I could not shot if the bird suddenly appeared. This lens is not allow me to do that

[Iain Barker]

I think the repost is an improvement on the original post especially the removing of the blue cast.