Mute Swan Family

[Iain Barker]

I thought I would continue the theme of may last few posts with more Swans.
Mute Swans this time.
I came across this family of swans only about a month ago so the cygnets must have been quite late.
The water is a small channel in a huge reed bed and I liked the way the reeds framed the swans. I only had a few seconds to take the picture before they turned and swam away up the channel.

Nikon D7000 300mm F4 AF. 1/1000sec F4 ISO 800. HH. Levels and sharpening in Lightroom. Very small crop to fix rotation.

Please let me know your thoughts on whether this works or not.

[John Robinson]

Iain
I love this !! Just my sort of pic with a subjectand habitat, Sadly not the kind of shot people go for these days. Reminds me of the ones done by the pioneers of nature photos. Kearton, Hosking, Brooke, Yates, Walpole Bond, etc ,etc. Great stuff!! Good position of the heads.
Cheers
JR
PS I,d like to get a piece of spam on a size 6 hook in that water!!!!!

[Alan Murphy]

Love the sense of habitat for this family. I might be tempted to clone out the OOF dark grasses at the bottom of the frame.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Iain, if this is close by I would look to going very early in the boring just as the sun is rising where you may get the mist rising or with the cold snap perhaps a little frost, all adds to the look & feel. Perhaps going more pano with the crop working from the top down could be another option, this would also address Alan's comment too which I agree with.

Great to seeing you getting out and about, looks like a nice location to get some interesting images from.

TFS
Steve

[gail bisson]

This has a very British feel to it.
I really like the way the waterway meanders through the frame.
Very nice environmental feel to this image.
I agree that the LLC feels a bit dark and heavy.I would crop in a bit from the left.
I was looking at you techs and think this image would have benefited from a much higher DOF -say f9 or 10 to render the swans a bit sharper.
I like this image a lot and think you should go back,if you can, with a bit better light and more DOF!
Gail

[Iain Barker]

Thanks all I was unsure about the LLC as I like the way it adds more depth but agree it is a little distracting.
This is somewhere I can visit again and I will try and revisit soon at a better time of day. The reason for my setting was so I had a good shutter speed if anything suddenly flew past. I took a few shots then changed my settings but by that point the moment had passed.

[Satish Ranadive]

Superb image of Swan family in beautiful artistic water surrounded by green grass, nice lights and shadows.
Agree about smaller aperture value. Wonderful frame.

Regards,
Satish.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Iain, you certainly timed the setting, framing the swans nicely between the banks. The central placement works well for me, but would take a bit off the bottom.