Australian Purple Swamp Hen - Juvenile

[Matthew Briggs]

So it's been a very long time since my Introduction post to the forum and have been flat out with work and didn't get much time to browse the forum but have been looking at people's photo's and thought they were amazing.

Anyway, it's long over due so I'm sharing a new shot that I took just today a few hours ago with a new lens I got.
Some people may remember that I posted saying I've got a Canon 60D with a Sigma 150-500mm Lens but have now upgraded to a Canon 300mm F4 L IS USM Lens and was using the Canon 1.4x mark III Extender in this shot and was really lucky to get some nice shots in today before the sun went down and before all the bad weather came in that's due to set for a few days.

So without dragging it on here's my photo of a young Purple Swamp Hen

Photo Details.
Equipment : Canon 60D with Canon 300mm F4 L IS USM Lens with Canon 1.4x Mark III Extender
Shooting Mode : AV - Aperture Priority
ISO 800 (automatic ISO set to not go over 1600) @ 1/800 Sec Shutter Speed F5.6 (extender increased f-stop)
Focal Length 420mm No Flash -0.3 Exposure Bias

Shooting Location : Traralgon Railway Reserve, Victoria Australia on the 3rd of December 2013 @ 6:49 PM as the sun is going down.

Edit: Forgot to add in the post that there have been no lightroom edits other than watermark, this is full frame picture as well.
Hand Held with no Tripod while laying on the ground.

[gail bisson]

Hi Matthew,
Welcome to Avian!
I like the low POV and the feeding pose. Good IQ.
A nice picture that could really shine with a few tweaks.
1. Use your shadows slider to selectively increase the details in the blacks especially in the neck
2. Clone out the white spot directly above the bird and the orange blob in front of the bird. They are quite distracting.
3. I wonder if you should warm the color balance a bit. I find that the color of the overall image is not quite right for a shot taken at sunset.
4.Post your image at the full allowed size of 1200 x 900 at max of 400KB. It will make it easier for my old eyes to see the finer details.
5. I would either burn or clone out the white stuff in the RLC. Or just crop up from the bottom to get rid of that area.
Looking forward to more,
Gail

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Hi Mathew. Cute looking little guy and I like the low shooting angle . Unfortunately you had a bird in the bg causing a busy bg as well as a pretty big distraction. I have learned to become more aware of my bg as well as my subjects and could offer that advice to you. It helped improve my images greatly. Keep at it. Look forward to more as well.

[Matthew Briggs]

Thank you kindly Cheryl and Gail for looking and sharing some thoughts with me.
In regards to the cloning out of objects, I haven't really had a lot of experience in doing this and tend to make images worse when I start to edit them in photoshop/lightroom so I tend to just do composition and watermarks in lightroom for single shots.

Think you're right in regards to paying more attention to the background as when i take a photo even after I look at it, i'm still looking more at the subject and what's in front of it rather than other species poking their heads in towards the back so might be what I try to work on now.

Thanks again.