So after I got back from a challenging day of shooting at the Refuge, I was in the house starting to put my gear away when my wife shouted "Come with your camera -- there are six large birds in the yard!". Sure enough a small group Sandhill cranes were feeding on bugs/worms in our grass!!
I had a chance to follow them and get a lot of pics -- I could actually get so close that I could not get the entire bird in the camera frame! But of all the pics I took, I think this was the best-composed of the group, so I'm submitting it for C&C.
Yes, I know I did not get all of the bird in the frame, and that deducts from the overall pic. Dangitt!!! But other than that, what else could I have done to make the pic better? And what post-processing steps would you recommend?
It's the same Sony A77 and 300mm f4 lens, but I forgot to write down the aperture and speed and ISO info (I'll update tonight). No post processing done at this point.
Hi Andrew, welcome to the forum! First of, very nice pose and the focus and exposure are on point. Have you done any post-processing work to this? If not, I would consider pulling back a little bit of the highlights in the neck area to recover some details in the brighter region. I noticed some chromatic aberration on the right edges; good thing is that it's so easy to fix. To go a step further, I would recommend removing the small reddish OOF highlight in the head area. If you keep the picture as it is, it needs a slight CW rotation otherwise you can experiment removing the OOF horizon line.
First let me say that I love Sandhill Cranes. Just something so cool about them. Sharpness seems very good as does exposure. Area under the chin is a bit hot but that can be easily fixed in post. Here are a few of my suggestions:
One of the big problems with large and tame birds is trying to get the whole bird in focus. When you are so close that you can barely get the head, neck and shoulders in the frame then you need to try and see if a high fstop will help get the whole bird in focus. It may not matter. Keep in mind that the closer you are to a bird the harder it is to get the whole bird in focus. I find the large out of focus area of the bird to be distracting.
In addition I would like to see the top of the bird not being cut off as well.
Would also like to see the whole beak. The classic over the shoulder preening pose would have the head parallel to the sensor. This would help keep more of the bird in focus as well.
The large white line in the background I find distracting, especially where it intersects the bird. Also the area or red that touches the back of the birds head.
Suggestions would be to see if you have shots taken from maybe 15 degrees to the left of where this was taken that may have more of the bird in focus. If not, then I would do some PS work and use the lasso and content aware fill to remove the white line and orangish area touching the birds head. I would tone down the highlights on the cheek/throat area. I would try and bring out some of the details from the top of the head that are in the shade. Also, the line in the back if it can not be removed is not level. I would do some clockwise rotation so the image is leveled.
I did a quick check and here is a link to a picture posted in the Avian critique forum. Shows what I am talking about with a clean background, good depth of field and head angle. http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ead.php/133995
A nice opportunity! Where are you to have Sandhills in your yard? I'm jealous!
Would have been good to get the top of the arched back. I'd crop from the right to minimize the OOF area by maybe half. Very nice sharpness and detail on the head and beak. Going to more DOF would have made the BG more of a problem. This won't need a lot in post. Good points above -- I've learned that if I'm late to class all I have to do is agree with what's been said! Good group here!
Diane, as usual makes excellent points. The other thing that I would recommend if time permits is to quickly take a shot and check your background on the back of your camera. See what height you would need to be at to get as clean of a background as possible. Perhaps if you were 6 inches one way or the other you could have avoided that line that cuts through the bird. I like Diane's suggestion of cropping off some of the bird on the right. Would help for sure.
Based on the Anhinga and the tame Sandhill Cranes I would guess these shots were taken in Florida. The cranes seem to be much more tame from Orlando and toward Tampa. The birds on the east coast are not so tame. So Andrew, how did I do with the location?
Well, all the big guns have got in before me here, so nothing much more to add, except I agree with all said above. Well done! Looking forward to seeing a processed re-post!
Thanks everyone for their comments! I've tried to apply what everyone has said to try in post-processing, and here is what I've come up with ....
clockwise rotation a bit
dropped Highlights some
I could not see the CA mentioned, but I check-marked the option to remove CA in LR
Played around with other Sliders like whites (lowered)
cropped pic to remove some bg and part of bird that Diane thought was OOF
I'm not good enough with LR Adjustment brush to try to do anything with the line, and don't have access to PS, so I kept the line.
Isaac: Yes, Florida - Orlando area to be specific. Get over to the east coast (Merritt Island) for most of my photo ops, but who knew I'd get these guys right in my yard?!?!
Glennie: if you think this is OK for "Avian - Preening" post, I'll put it over there and ask them to be gentle ....
Good you are trying things. The top of the frame is very crowded now, though. You might use a technique here that you see in portrait photography, of cutting off the top of the head. Crop to just above your white line (it doesn't bother me to have a little of it) and see what you think. It makes the tight composition look intentional instead of a glitch.
An important skill is to watch the edges through the viewfinder and not crowd things, because you may need to rotate a little in post. (Also important to watch for a level horizon.) It's a balance between composing too tight to get the most pixels on the subject and leaving enough room for correcting horizons or perspective that you didn't see (or couldn't control) when you took the picture.
I wouldn't ever lower the whites slider. If you have whites too bright, lower Highlights and Exposure (sliders to left), as needed. Use the Whites slider to bring the brightest tones back up if they are lowered too much by the other two sliders. That can give you a subtle stretching of the brightest tones, to bring in more detail.
You could drag a graduated filter adjustment from the right edge to burn down that area a little to help keep the eye on the subject, the very nice face.
Last edited by Diane Miller; 03-09-2016 at 12:56 PM.
Very nice! Since the body of the bird is so big in the frame and OOF it distracts from the nice sharp head and neck. How about flipping it a bit and eliminate the big body? My idea would be this, I also added a little canvas on the right side and adjusted the Highlights down a bit.
I think the rework with the picture flipped and the canvas added is an improvement. I would have never thought to do that. I also think the rework of the original with the tighter crop is quite a bit better. Nice job.
That was a great idea Craig! Love the details that you caught Andrew! When we go visit my wife's dad in North Fort Myers I have had these things basically walk right up to me to the point that I am looking them right in the eye! Gotta watch out for that beak!!
Craig: Sorry for the delay in responding, but Craig that was inspired thinking!! Warren, that's the closest I've been to a big bird short of some semi-tame pelicans at Robbie's in the Keys (pelicans have sharp beaks too!).
Sandhill Crane
