Here's another photo that violates a lot of "rules" - the foreground and background are cluttered for example. I also am a bit disturbed because the bird seems stretched out. But I think he is stretching to try to look over that big gob of grasshoppers he is carrying around. How many hoppers can one bird manage at a time? Reminds me of puffins carrying sand eels - how do they do it? Anyway, hopefully this carries the picture. I'm posting this more for interest than because of artistic beauty.
Canon 400d
Sigma 170-500 lens at 500 mm
f9
ISO 200
1/400
On the preview I can see I need to get rid of the stick on the right.
Great capture Dave. Beautiful colors and very sharp. Only wish that the foreground leaves were not there, but then I don't know enough to get them out.
Congrats,
I'd say good capture, too, Dave. I don't know about those rules re foreground and background you mentioned. I'm pretty sure though many times birds, especially the small ones, are found with a cluttered background. That's where they live, where they like to be, I think ;)
Last edited by Desmond Chan; 08-02-2008 at 10:55 PM.
I don't mind the clutter because you've got a clean look at the bird here and the BG is nicely blurred Dave. Love the meal! I'd like to see a lower angle here and I'd remove the stick to the right of the bird. Thanks for posting!
Dave, nice photo of the robin but, wow, is that lighting harsh! The shadows are extremely deep and dark throughout the image, leaving me thinking the whole thing is a bit unrealistic and a little hard to look at. I think you did an excellent job of setting up the composition and your aperture and camera settings seem appropriate but the lighting just doesn't work for me on this one. You might be able to soften the difference between the shadows and the highlights in pp (post-processing) but it's not going to be as nice as if you had started with good, soft lighting to begin with.
Robin with hoppers
