I'm brand new to this board and welcome some criticism about my photos.
Last May, I had just purchased a new Canon 600mm f/4L IS II USM. I attached it to my 7D MkII and waited in the backyard. There are 3-4 Mississippi Kites that would circle our neighborhood in the afternoon. Sometimes you would see only 1. Other times all of them. This particular afternoon, one Kite chose to fly directly over our house ... numerous times.
I took this shot hand held. To be honest, I took a lot of them. The lens is a beast to hold on to and I was trying to figure out how to FIND the bird and keep it in focus.
Of all the photos I took, this was the best one. A few things:
1. I cut off part of the Kite's right wingtip.
2. It was a grey overcast day, so the background is quite boring and blown out.
3. Edited RAW file in LR6.
a. Added lens profile
b. Cropped to put birds face in the center.
c. Reduced highlights and White Clipping
d. Sharpen Scenic
I like this photo because of how the Kite is staring right at me. But it bugs me that I cut off the wing. In Arthur Morris' book "The Art of Bird Photography II" page 244, when talking about a Bald Eagle in Homer, AK he states, "Tight cropping of a photographs like this can result in powerful images. Be sure to take care as to exactly where you cut the various feather tracts."
With that all in mind, I would like to hear some thoughts on any of you would crop this photo. Or even if you would toss it because of the cut off wing tip.
Canon 7D MkII, 600mm f/4l IS II USM f/4.0 1/8000 ISO 1250 Av mode +2EV
You say you reduced highlight and white clipping - which parts did this affect and how much did you apply? I just think in retrospect you could have afforded the underwing a bit more exposure compensation and as it is it looks a bit muddy.
Which brings us to the composition - losing the right wingtip is a shame and maybe the only way to can reduce the impact is by cropping the left to gives some sort of symmetry. But to do this you need to reduce noise as much as possible because for significant cropping in my experience ISO 1250 or 1600 on the 7D2 is where I start to get noise issues. So it means either pushing exposure to the right (technically, overexposing) or reducing ISO, and I see you had a shutter speed of 1/8,000 so you had latitude for either.
Hi Marlo, I agree with Mike about the noise, as for the crop I would prefer a bit more space at the top and for the wing that is clipped it can be repaired, if not mistaken APTATS book one shows how to repair cut off wing tips there are also resources online about repairing wing tips ect. From my understanding the 600mm is a beast to handhold so well done, maybe using a tripod and a gimbal head would be a better then blowing out your arm in the long run. Apart for that it's still a good shot with good details. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for your reply. Yes, I wasn't paying enough attention to my ISO. I had started when it was darker out, so I had my ISO set at 1250. As the day continued, the Kite finally showed up. I was so surprised to see it so close to our house, I didn't think about dropping the ISO down.
My thought process was that the lens was so hard to hand hold, I wanted a fast shutter speed. As I continue to work with this lens on tripod/gimbal I am much more cognizant of my camera settings.
Brian, I had the camera sitting on tripod with gimbal. Prior to purchasing I was used to hand holding my Tamron 150-600mm. So, I thought that i could keep the camera on tripod and release it when the kites showed up.
All in all, a lesson learned on this long journey of bird photography!
Hey Marlo, welcome to BPN! Awesome species, I bet you had/have a lot of fun with them.
Looks sharp enough, and I love the tail twisting like a rudder. If this is full-frame, then you have enough pixels to crop in tighter without worrying about significant loss of IQ (image quality). I do find the subject a bit underexposed, so for the repost I lightened to taste via levels, added a bit of warmth (I found your version rather "cool"). As for cropping, how much and the general composition can be subjective, but what you read in Artie's book is correct, you need to be careful where you do cut the wing. Here you will notice that I was careful not to cut the underwing coverts, plus left a bit of room below them. For the top wing, I cut in the thick of a feather tip, making sure I did not clip any adjoining one.
P.S. In these types of conditions I like to embrace high-key (bright white backgrounds), and when well done can be highly effective
Welcome to The Forum and I look forward to seeing more from you. This one is a nice capture I don't think you needed to reduce the exposure so much. Dan's repost is about perfect in the sense of exposure and composition.
Well done
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Thank you Daniel for the great critique. My main question was about cropping, but thank you so much for the ideas about temperature and exposure. To be honest, I was thinking that after I decided on the crop, I would convert the image to black and white.
Thoughts on my photo and cropping
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