Little Stint

[Richard Flack]

Little Stint taken at nearby bird sanctuary. I took this under quite difficult conditions and quite liked the simplicity of the photo.

Date taken: 30 August 2013
Photo details:
Canon EOS 7D
400mm f2.8
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/4000
F-stop 4
Exposure bias -0.7
NR to background. 40% crop. Few minor changes to brightness/contrast.
I welcome any comments. (As many of you know I am not an expert on NR :). Gave it a bash in this photo.)

[Marina Scarr]

I do find this to be a pleasing scene/image. You photographed from a good low angle and I like the 2-tiered background. Unfortunately, your image quality appears to have suffered from the 40% crop with the 7D. I am not seeing any noise at all here...but hoping you didn't do any noise reduction on the bird. At ISO 200 that would most likely not be necessary and could hurt your feather details.

I think you will find that for photographing birds, you rarely need to be lower than ISO 400. With the 7D I think keeping your ISO on 400 would be a good place for birds and you can pretty easily photograph up to ISO 800 without issues. Some photographers like Daniel Cadieux has gone much higher with super results.

Looking forward to more of your images.!!!! You're off to a great start.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice low angle shot, and good pose. The light direction was in your favor. Good work.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Richard I like your image, the quality doesn't look too bad to me but the use of a 1.4TC would have helped. (Series 11 TC often a good buy second hand).
The only slight negative I have is the the image is in two halves (excuse the football parlance) and tyhe bird is slap dab in the middle.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Nice low angle, and I like the molting plumage. I'm OK with the two "halves" of the comp, and the bird is nicely placed at left. NR looks good on the BG.

Marina brings a good point. I do not remember the last time I was lower than ISO 400 even in strong light...this way you get more SS for action, or more leeway to stop down the aperture.