SonyA700~Sony70-400G@400mm~ISO1600~F5.6~1/50 sec~manual exposure~tripod~6-11-2010/8:08PM~Brazos Bend State Park, Texas~CS4
Near sunset in the shade, exposure pushed, no NR, high key background had darker areas, selected background and filled with dominant BG color; a very light gray.
Note about head angle; sometimes the greater DOF needed for more of a head angle toward the viewer can cause serious overall image degredation, and here if I had used the acceptable HA that BPN suggests, the overall image quality would suffer.
Here is a case in point. 1)ISO 1600 is the upper limit, IMO, for satisfactory images with the Sony A-700, above noise becomes a serious issue, and detail loss due to NR in post processing has a substantial impact on image detail.
2)even with a tripod blur caused by a subject or camera movement becomes apparent the lower the shutter speed. Here, I felt 1/50 second should be sufficient, but lower might cause problems.
3)The F stop here was 5.6, wide open.
In order for a so called proper head angle to be captured in this light, and in good focus, a greater DOF, and thus higher Fstop would be required. If I did that, I would be forced to increase the ISO, and that would be a problem!
comments and critique welcomed. regards~Bill
Last edited by WIlliam Maroldo; 06-18-2010 at 12:16 AM.
First of all great image. Now to HA. I agree with you totally. It would be very boring if everytime we took a photo everything (light, BG, HA, etc) were perfect. There would be no challange, no excitment when we get it close to being right. So every time we shoot we are making decisions to get the best out of the situation. I think you did good :) and not sure if a different HA would be correct for this image.
Please explain this one because it just makes no sense? "Note about head angle; sometimes the greater DOF needed for more of a head angle toward the viewer can cause serious overall image degredation, and here if I had used the acceptable HA that BPN suggests, the overall image quality would suffer."
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Mike I wish all my images were perfect and would not find that boring :) ...what I find boring is having all the images look the same. Same HA, same light etc etc etc. Going different and making it work makes it interesting. A working picture of a bird looking away, different placement in frame, side lit etc ... btw all of these are much more difficult and have a lower keeper rate.
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Back to Bills and a second statement "In order for a so called proper head angle to be captured in this light, and in good focus, a greater DOF, and thus higher Fstop would be required. If I did that, I would be forced to increase the ISO, and that would be a problem!"
The reason for the head angle is to be able to have the birds eyeball in the same plane as the beak so at shallow dof both will be sharp so the rest of the beak will appear sharp. ............. so how getting the right head angle would suffer by not being able to stop down. Going further toward the viewer would not have a "correct" head angle. I think you have the wrong idea of what an ideal head angle is and I'm sure the "ideal" would change with circumstances.
Don't want anyone to get the wrong idea of what we mean by a good head angle .... simply a bird looks more attractive and the image is more intimate if the bird is looking slightly toward the camera than slightly away, will also have the eye and tip of bill as described above. The slight turn could and normally is very slight ... not a head turn toward the camera.
All of these things are just suggestions to help making good images but no hard rules to be taken to heart every time you press the shutter. Same for the rule of thirds, having the horizon in the middle of the frame, placing a little bird in the middle etc. Lots of ways to go agains the flow and that is the challenge, make them work !!!
Great thread and glad to see the points brought out by Bill Maybe a better understanding of head angle will be had .... and btw lots of times if an image moves me I overlook head angle and other things, probably not correct on my part but I'm enjoying the image so much certain details are overlooked.
Thanks guys. Al, I might not have explained myself well, and actually HA wasn't my main point. I was basically giving as example of how we sometimes need to make compromises given the situation. Nothing new actually, but it related to head angles here. What got me thinking about it was Kaustubh's post here where he needed to limit DOF to avoid inclusion of a distracting background, thus needed the birds head to be parallel to the sensor.
I would have preferred more of a head pointed toward me, and indeed it does look better. Yet because of the limitations of the light at the time(being dim) this proper head angle would require increasing the DOF(naturally) and in this specific case the overall image quality might suffer. My logic; to get proper exposure in this situationwhere increasing the F stop is needed, you have two choices; decrease the shutter speed or increase the ISO. My contention is that in this example either choice would have negative effects on image quality. Shutter speed decrease: blurring of image, increase ISO; unacceptable noise that would require NR and a corresponding loss of detail. I am often confronted by the problem of having to increase the depth of field to compensate for a bird's head angled for toward the viewer, especially with large birds with long bills, and the increase could be substantial; from F/5.6(parallel to sensor) to F9 or even F11. Just an example of what we confront all the time; we know what would make a better image, yet we must make compromises because of the situation.
regards~Bill
Last edited by WIlliam Maroldo; 06-18-2010 at 08:10 AM.
Agree is all about compromises and understand now the point you were trying to make !! In the example you linked (great btw) the ideal head angle would have been a couple degrees to the viewer to have the tip in focus .. if that was a GBH then the turn would have been a little more since the eyeball stick out more !!!
I think today the biggest compromise we make is figuring out the ISO .. how high can we take it and have good IQ !! Choices choices :)
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