Feeding TIme

[Matthew Kuchta]

Feeding Time
[IMG]18114[/IMG]
10D, 100-400IS, ISO 200
1/400sec, f8.0

Slight crop (5% off horizontal, 10% off vertical). Curve adjustment, +5 master saturation (+10 red channel) and just a little USM in PShop.

Last year, I visited a friend's cabin in northern MN, and was treated to a family of loons that lived nearby. I wish for a little more highlight on the chick, but it's a small thing. Cropped the top and bottom to focus attention on the feeding, and a little off the sides because my 1-4 lens doesn't do DOF very well.

cheers,
-matt

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Nice angle, light, exposure control and moment captured. I might lighten the chick's eye a bit. Keep them coming!

I fixed the link and replaced "attach" with "img".

[Daniel Cadieux]

Cropped the top and bottom to focus attention on the feeding, and a little off the sides because my 1-4 lens doesn't do DOF very well.

cheers,
-matt

I see this is your first post in the Avian, Wild and Free section...Welcome aboard!!:)

I am a bit perplexed by the above quote. I have this lens too and it is paired up with a 40D (also a 1.6 crop camera). I am aware of some of the limitations this lens can have (guess I'm lucky as I do not have any problems with it), but I have never heard that this lens "doesn't do DOF very well"? I could have understood if used on a full-frame camera which could showcase problems at the edges if there were any, but on a crop? Just curious, that's all...:cool:

As for the photo itself, I like the interaction between parent and chick...nice exchange of food. Both head angles are a bit off though (looking slightly away). I like the low angle and intimate view. Looking forward to more!!

[Matthew Kuchta]

Daniel,
By "not handling DOF" I mean that when I get the AF locked and then recompose, sometimes the edges show more blur than I like. Plus, the bokeh of this lens isn't my favorite and OOF areas tend to look harsh, rather than soft.
-matt

[Sudhir Shivaram]

The moment has been well captured. The soft and delicate touch is so well presented here. Perfect on the composition as well. A bit of light on the chick's eye would have been wonderful.

[Arthur Morris]

The image has a huge blue cast so I warmed it up a bit. The chick's eye is dark because its head is rotated away from us, that is, the top of its head is closer to us than the bottom of the head. And, the adult's head angle is less than ideal. Perfect timing however on the handoff of the fish.

As for Matthews technical comments on the 1-4, they do not make much sense to me.

ps: Also darkened the pupil and lightened the iris of the chick.