This is my first photo of an osprey. I caught it this morning, unexpectedly, as it was flying directly above my head. The weather was cool, quiet and clear. It was exciting to see one that close so that my lens was long enough to reach it. The image is approximately 75% cropped.
I was surprised the image turned out as well as it did. I made some adjustments in Lightroom -- contrast, clarity, Shadow Tones and sharpening. I wish the head and eyes were clearer, etc.
HI Wendell do remember my first Osprey Exciting !!!!
Good crop and bird placement Might take a bit of the top Excellent wing position and good detail under wings !!!!
Would tone down the blue by desaturating (not much) Would suggest different settings for making the image First is closing down to 5.6 or so No need to shoot wide open Also if you get enough shutter speed might lower the ISO
The head is lacking detail Not sure if is motion form bird camera or combination The critical focus is on the wings so the 2.8 comes to haunt you Congrats on your first bird I'm sure you will get many more !!!!
Thanks, Al. It seems most of my skies turn out too blue. I'll bring down my ISO to 200. I can see how closing down to 5.6 would help, too. I tend to use 2.8 in almost all circumstances, but see how it worked against me here -- and wasn't needed. But I did need your critique and it's helpful.
Hey Wendell, sure am glad that you saw an Osprey...great bird! I think you could get by here with a looser crop to give the bird a bit more room around the wingtips...and more pixels in your final image so you can print it larger! I agree that some desaturation to the sky would be helpful. Did you have your camera set for continual focusing? If not, that may be why the critical focus on the head/eyes is not quite there. Very nice for a first Osprey image and I hope that you get many more opportunities!
Al, it seems that the head is a little soft while the rest of the body was irelatively sharp. would f/5.6 have helped that by increasing the DOF? would it have been even better to close down to f/8? I realize this would have brought the shutter speed to ~1/500 or 1/640, but that probably would have been enough to stop most of the wing movement blur. Or would it?
Wendell, I realize that it is really tough to make changes on the fly (pun intended) :D, I'm just curious if the changes are worth considering the next time I'm in a position such the one you were in when you took this picture. Thanks for posting your picture.
No, I didn't have it set for continual focusing, Judd. And "changes on the fly'" were not possible, Scott. I, too, would be curious about Al's opinion whether a shutter speed of 1/500 would ordinarily be fast enough to stop wing movement on a big bird such as this.
Wendell, I just went to http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html and ran several scenarios. Based on that information and guessing the distance you were away from the bird it looks like f/5.6 would have given you pleny of DOF to get the entire bird in focus. Also, f/5.6 would have kept the shutterspeed plenty fast to stop the blur.
Right on about the aperture At the distance it was taken 5.6 would have been sufficient At minimum distance the dof is measured in millimeters but at close to infinity is a lot For light I like to keep my shutter speed at over 1000 and 1600 if I'm able Always like to give me a good opportunity for a sharp image
Not sure about the head on this one with the increas dof?
My first osprey
