As the sun achieved the horizon, this beauty perched just outside my MFD. Rather than stop down (800mm at MFD), I went for a very narrow DOF with focus right on the eye. I loved that i could see the sunrise on the horizon in the eye and wanted to emphasize that aspect. Does it work? Or too narrow on DOF?
1DMKIIN 400DO 2xtc ISO 400 F8@1/320
Although my preference is to have deeper DOF for most of these shots, this is a beautiful image and works for me. Love the color that the early light brings out here, and the beautiful gradient BG too. I might be tempted to add a little more room to the right so the eye is not so centered. Well thought out and very well done, congratulations!
I like the precise focus positioning. Limiting the dof is working here, I would have gone for more to have the bill tip in focus. With the bg there was not need to worry about lots of dof. Would crop right behind the back of neck, don't think that area is adding to the image and will reposition the eye. I like the image a lot pleasing and beautiful !!!
As always, thanks for the learnings!!!! Here is the suggested crop. This beauty was still in "old worn" breeding plumage as the chicks probabaly fledged many weeks ago. Created at Green Cay this past weekend.
I also like the repost's crop. One thing I notice though is a dark halo along bottom of the bill and top of the head...possibly caused by the S/H tool.
My take: the short depth of field and the resulting out of focus areas, in my opinion, does not add anything to the image, that otherwise, has a great eye reflections, head detail, and exposure. Actually I don't see why the neck is out of focus, it seems to be on the same plane as the head? I guess not. In any case I think that the OOF area could have been avoided, obviously, by increasing the depth of field, and the resulting image would have been far better. regards~Bill
Sunrise.....
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