Parakeet

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Camera	Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Exposure	0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture	f/5.6
Focal Length	700 mm
ISO Speed	160
Exposure Bias	0 EV

I was in Auto-ISO hence the low ISO. Should have used ISO 400 I guess. I hope you like the feeding behavior on the ground. I got low to get this shot.

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Beautiful bird! I'd crop it a little tighter (perhaps to about 1/4 into the plant in front of the bird). That would also get rid of some unused space at the top. It looks a little over exposed so I'd bring down the highlights (and perhaps the exposure) a little. In hindsight it might have been worthwhile lifting the camera just a little higher to prevent the out of focus line right at the bottom of the photo.

I'm still new around here so I'm watching the other guys' responses with interest...

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Thanks Tobie, appreciate your comments. I had increased exposure during PP so I can easily rectify that.

[Doug West]

Before touching the parakeet, try darkening the background a little first. That
should make the parakeet jump out a little more. Then after that decide what
to do with the exposure of the parakeet.

When I work on my images, I always have a minimum of three layers...the background,
the background copy minus the bird and finally the bird only. So whatever I do with
the background, doesn't effect the bird and vice versa.

When it comes to a light bird like this, I almost always darken the background a little.

As far as that out of focus stuff at the bottom...you might have enough room
to crop out almost all of it. Then take whatever is remaining, and clone some
of the dirt over top of it.

Oh and don't worry about the ISO. As long as the bird is sharp with enough shutter
speed and the right aperture, you're good to go. Me, I always start at 400 then just
go from there. If I have enough light and get away with something lower, I'll do that.

Doug

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Sanjeev, like the low perspective it works well, but lose that Auto ISO.

The OOF grasses in the FG are a little distracting, but nothing much you could do. I would selectively drop/adjust the exp on the subject in parts to reduce the slightly brighter areas. Perhaps just a tad more DoF for me, but perhaps a little more localised sharpening would help/do the trick? If you have the time, go more pano and lose some of the dead space above IMHO. If you do play with the crop then prune out the little bit of vegetation creeping in on the RHS.

These are lovely subject and if fact a flock fly each mooring and evening over the house, they escaped many, many years ago from Pinewood studios whilst being used in the production of a movie, but India is a better setting.


BTW have you got the new lens?

TFS
Steve

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Thanks Doug & Steve. Steve, I am awaiting delivery of my new lens, there seems to be a bit of a shortage of the Canon 70-200 f/2.8 II here in Hyderabad, India. Hopefully I should get it by the month end.

[Iain Barker]

Hi Sanjeev

Overall this is a very nice image and the suggestions made already should improve it more.
I wonder if you had moved to the right slightly, so that the birds head was not in front of the bush it is feeding on, the head my have stood out better?

Cheers
Iain

[Steve Kaluski]

Hopefully I should get it by the month end.

Excellent!

I wonder if you had moved to the right slightly, so that the birds head was not in front of the bush it is feeding on, the head my have stood out better?

Good call Iain.

[Sandy Witvoet]

Agree with above posts. The bottom OOF area wouldn't be too distracting IF it didn't show such a definitive crooked line between that area and the in-focus area. Maybe a bit of CCW rotation too? Very pretty and unusual image!

[Diane Miller]

Nice to see these birds wild! I hope you got a variety of poses.

Sandy has a good point. The first thing I saw in the image is that sharp transition between in-focus and OOF in the FG. Looks very odd -- I'd crop it out, along with a lot off the top as mentioned. Then some tonal work is in order -- good points raised above.

[Tim Harding]

Agree with everyone's comments about the OOF area in the foreground. It's the first thing my eye was drawn to, before the bird even. Crop it out, clone over it or use PS content-aware fill.