Prairie Chicken

[kevin Hice]

I took a picture of this prairie chicken in the fall late evening during a wind storm 35mph. in the sand hills of Nebraska. These birds were covered in the litter and when i stopped some stood ready to blow out. I took a bunch of photos this was one of my best . Had a hard time acquiring focus either because of the lack of contrast or the darkness.Finally turned off the auto focus and started shooting manually.I lucked out at the last minute and the sun broke through the clouds and put the light on top of the bird. Was shooting from truck window using blubb bean bag. Did some post in Photoshop elements.Saturation vibrance highlites cropping. A little cloning bottom right that was distracting by the birds tail because of sun coming from next row of corn. critiques welcomed Question because it was so dark out would taking the lens hood off helped?

canon 5d mark11
300 2.811
focal 600mm
ISO 1600
F stop 5.60
shutter 1/500
2xteleconvertor 11

[Diane Miller]

Hi Kevin,

Glad you got the upload problem worked out. You have an excellent body for reasonably still subjects, and an excellent lens. Looks like a good choice of settings for low light. I've never heard any claims that the hood will cause any problems if there is any stray light -- the inside is a very non-reflective surface and I wouldn't worry about light hitting it, if that was your concern. A bigger worry would be stray light hitting the front element of the lens. And it is great physical protection, as well.

I think most viewer's reaction would be to want the bird a little further into the frame, but it sounds like the next row of stubble was in the way. (Good job on the cloning.) The bright and out of focus stuff on the left is a little distracting and a crop there would move the bird into a better position as well as eliminating some distractions. It would still leave a good amount of the environment.

The highlights are also very bright -- I don't know the RAW converter in Elements but if it has sliders for Highlight and Shadow detail maybe contrast could have been lowered a little more. They are also too far toward the yellow for many people's taste. You could try for some changes to the white balance (temperature and tint) and see if you get a better result. The camera's choice of WB is only a guess and can be off. Sometimes Auto is better, but often it comes down to tweaking.

Caution with a bean bag when you are in manual focus (including using back button focus in AI Servo, if you release the focus button to recompose) -- the focus ring on the lens is so wide that you don't want it resting on the support because it could easily be moved slightly. I try to move back and rest the hood on the bean bag when ergonomically possible.

Looking forward to seeing more of your work!

[kevin Hice]

Thanks for the reply Diane and the suggestions i agree on the highlites.The question on the hood I think you misunderstood it was almost dark just before this shot. Would it have helped in a low light situation to remove the hood to allow any available light in? thanks again

[Diane Miller]

No, the angle of view of the lens is much narrower than the angle "shaded" by the hood (even more so with the 2x on), so the hood has no effect on the light that is being focused on the sensor and AF sensor. If it did, you would see vignetting in the corners.

[Marvin T. Smith]

The golden light really adds interest to this photo.

[Iain Barker]

Hi Kevin

I like what you have tried to do with this image. The subject nice and sharp and I quite like the colours.
I find the brightness of the of the plants in the foreground and the in focus areas of the the left quite distracting though. Maybe if the bright areas were toned down slightly they might not distract as much.
In general the eye is drawn to the brightest area of an image which in this case is not the subject.

TFS
Iain