Without the skills or inclination to set-up for warblers like this, I just take my chances, which are few and far between. But sometimes you get lucky!
This is a North American wood warbler (family Parulidae) called the Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas)- a male. They have just arrived on spring migration and are already on territory in the wet areas of the Sackville Waterfowl Park.
I applied some blur to the BG after q-masking out the bird. Cropped and sharpened. I processed one with the flash catchlight in the eye and one without and preferred the latter, which is shown.
Hope you like it. Comments of course welcome!
Canon EOS 50D 500/4 x 1.4 = 700 mm
capture date: 18 May, 2009, 84 AM
exposure program: Aperture Priority
ISO speed: 400
shutter speed: 1/400
aperture: f7.1
exposure bias: +0.0
metering: Pattern
flash: ON; ETT-L - 1 2/3, Beamer
Last edited by John Chardine; 05-18-2009 at 04:40 PM.
Very nice color and detail, John and I like how the background turned out. I think the eyes are fine without a flash-generated catchlight (I'm not a fan of those in any case :) ). You might consider cropping some off the left for more of a vertical-comp look. This would also even out the background tones even more. Well done.
fantastic capture, john! beautiful bird. maybe a little tight in the frame for me. would add a little below and left. congrats on the warbler. the detail is really nice.
I'm OK with no catchlight as long as there is a visible reflection in the eye such as what you have here. A bit tight in the frame, but good job in getting close without setting up or using audio (I find this species rather difficult to approach without these "tools"). These guys' singing sure livens things up in and around wetlands once they show up! :-)
I want to take this opportunity to get to the bottom of the question of how much room a subject should have in an image. The consensus is that this one is too tight and I need to know why. Maybe it's just a personal preference in which case it may not be quantifiable. When I crop an image I do it almost totally instinctively so personal preference could be a big factor here.
I have read on BPN (but can't for the life of me remember who said it!) that as a general rule a subject should take up no more than 75% of the space in an image. This Common Yellowthroat takes up about 25% which includes the space between its legs, so 75% can't be a good guide, at least in this case. I think I understand the idea of giving room in the direction the bird is looking or moving and (usually) giving more room at top than bottom. Again I crop instinctively so these "rules" are not in my mind when I'm doing it. In my critiques of images on BPN I find myself frequently mentioning room, as in "more room at the right needed" or "more room at the top would be nice" so I'm not oblivious to the issue.
Could it have something to do with the real-life size of the bird in relation to the image size? In this one the warbler is much bigger on-screen than in real life so maybe in this case you need to give extra room because the subject is so "in your face"? I would see giving extra room as well if there was a particularly interesting habitat feature that you wanted to include in the image (as in Daniel's recent super post of a Clay-coloured Sparrow).
BTW I tried to find an answer in Artie's ABPII and couldn't find anything specific (but I probably just couldn't find it rather than it isn't there). I did notice that many of his images in this excellent book are cropped much tighter than the yellowthroat and would be much closer to the 75% figure mentioned earlier.
Hi John. It seems to me that almost nothing on this site is more subjective than how to crop an image - just look at the diversity of opinions one gets in critiques. I suspect that most images would look good with several alternate crops. I don't think that there are (or should be) any hard and fast rules on how cropping should be done. Otherwise, all images would be cookie-cutter imitations of each other - pretty boring, IMO. I'll be interested to hear some other opinions on this subject. :)
Considering the crop, it is purely a matter of taste,
I think, depending what you are trying to communicate
with the image. This one says "in your face" and is quite properly
"tight". It is interesting to note that it also has a very difficult head
angle again "in your face". Perhaps in most situations it wouldn't be
too good, however, in this case the above two effects put the unique MASK of the bird
up and front and that is the main feature that I believe makes it a success.
John, it's very true that it is a matter of taste. For smaller birds I've always preferred looser crops, such as with my Clay-colored Sparrow you mention (thanks BTW!). You'll notice that almost all my "small bird" images feature the subjects relatively small in the frame (percentage-wise). For small perched songbirds, occupying 75% of the frame is alot IMO. I just find it aesthetically more pleasing to the eye...sort of gives them "virtual room" to twitch and flutter about like they like to do :-) It also gives them a more typical view (size-wise) of how we see them out there in nature, although I realize there are exceptions.
Last edited by Daniel Cadieux; 05-19-2009 at 10:01 AM.
Reason: typo
Hi John ...just got back...Bicknells 556...nice closeup...sharp and true colors...this bird must have been saying "I'm ready for my close-up now Mr. Chardine"
Common Yellowthroat
4 AM
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