Red-Billed Tropicbird

[BillTyler]

Photographed from the cliffs on South Plaza Island, Galapagos. Comments and suggestions welcome.

Bill

Canon 5Dmk3
Canon 100-400mm lens at 400mm
1/800 f/10
ISO 800
handheld
cropped from 5760x3380 down to 3356x2397 (approx 20 megapixels down to approx 8 megapixels)

[BillTyler]

Here's the photo I forgot to attach to the original post.

Bill

[Diane Miller]

We must have the same secretary...

A nice angle on a very interesting bird. You got a good exposure with detail in the whites and shadows. I'd clone out the two circles (specular reflections?) near the lower right and upper left.

Although it looks like focus held on the subject, image quality has suffered from the crop, but you didn't have much choice for getting closer. For a subject that is that small in the frame, from a depth of field issue you shouldn't need f/10. I'd probably be one stop down from wide open, although each lens has its own sweet spot. And maybe for that lens, it is best stopped down where you were. I don't know. But I'd trade DOF for shutter speed, if the lens would do well at a wider aperture. Handholding at 1/800 can be on the thin edge. It's all statistical -- a higher percentage will be sharper at a faster SS (all else being equal). You'll see some minor degradation in sharpness at marginal speeds before you see obvious motion blur.

[BillTyler]

Hi Diane,

Thanks for the helpful comments.

Bill

We must have the same secretary...

A nice angle on a very interesting bird. You got a good exposure with detail in the whites and shadows. I'd clone out the two circles (specular reflections?) near the lower right and upper left.

Although it looks like focus held on the subject, image quality has suffered from the crop, but you didn't have much choice for getting closer. For a subject that is that small in the frame, from a depth of field issue you shouldn't need f/10. I'd probably be one stop down from wide open, although each lens has its own sweet spot. And maybe for that lens, it is best stopped down where you were. I don't know. But I'd trade DOF for shutter speed, if the lens would do well at a wider aperture. Handholding at 1/800 can be on the thin edge. It's all statistical -- a higher percentage will be sharper at a faster SS (all else being equal). You'll see some minor degradation in sharpness at marginal speeds before you see obvious motion blur.