Teal Flight

[Bob Smith]

I was motoring my punt along the side of a big slough in the outer marshes of the south arm of the Fraser R. near my home when these teal took off and headed out to the river along the far bank. Luckily I had the camera to hand and caught them as they passed. I'm not sure if a higher ISO and a bigger aperture would have helped the background look for this image?7D Mark II;EF 400mm DO f/4 IS; ISO 640;f/7.1;1/1600

[Diane Miller]

It's hard for me to say if a wider aperture would have helped a lot. as the birds look fairly close to the BG. They are not all in the same plane so you might have lost some depth of field on them.

I think the main issue with the image is that the birds blend into the BG in color and brightness, and get a bit lost. That was just a function of the light - not much you could do about it. By the time they were against sky or a more distant BG they probably would have been too far away. You did a good job of capturing them in a natural situation, but it wasn't an optimal one.

[Glennie Passier]

Bob. There's a lot going on here. The birds look good and sharp, but I find the BG too busy. Good habitat shot.

[Bob Smith]

Thanks Dianne and Glennie. In situations like this I try to have dialled in the appropriate settings for what might occur, knowing that many opportunities will arise w/o time to do anything but shoot and I also shoot short bursts so that if the birds pass over or rise up into a good BG I'll have some buffer capacity to capture that moment. Maybe there is a way to play with this shot and see if I can create a pleasing blur of the BG but that's a trick I'll have to learn. I did use the contrast sliders to try and make the birds stand out from the BG as much as I reasonably could.

[Diane Miller]

For me, trying to select the birds separately from the BG would be very tedious and just not worth the trouble. It's a good thing to know, but I would only try it with a single bird that is large in the frame. But go for any learning experience you can!