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BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
E-mail me at samandmayasgrandpa@att.net.
Thanks to all who played the eagle round :)
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
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After having enjoyed reading this thread, i exchanged some emails with Artie about HA's when photographing hummingbirds. The attached photo shows three different HA's for the same copper-rumped hummingbird photographed last month in Trinidad. They were all taken at the same camera settings, have not had any "final processing" in PS and are only intended for discussion of their HA's. "A" is rotated a few degrees towards the viewer, "B" is at about 45 degrees to the viewer, and "C" is almost directly/90 degrees towards the viewer. Is there a preferred HA, which would you keep or delete?
Last edited by Peter Hawrylyshyn; 04-04-2011 at 07:19 PM.
Thanks a stack for posting this Peter. Everyone is welcome to contact me about posting some comparative head angle e-mails. I look forward to the gang's comments. Hummers certainly are a different breed....
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My preference is "A" on the hummingbirds.
In part because in all three poses, I have a hard time telling if the bird is looking at the photographer or just staring beyond. The eyes are so different. So rather then try to guess... I go with the image where I don't have to decide if he's looking at me or not, he's not. Does that make sense?
I almost never care where the bird is looking as long as he is not facing the other way :)
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
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I came in late but liked C before I read the opinions because the whole posture flows much better as the right leg is forward, the body is leaning forward a bit and the angle between the neck and the back is not as acute which connects the head with the body in a more pleasing way. These factors give a more cohesive picture of the bird's attention/energy being directed towards the object it is interested in
Hi Allen, I think that I have written at length on this somewhere in this thread but have no idea where :) Or it may have been elsewhere on BPN. So I will be brief. I rarely if ever utter the words "eye contact" or "catch light." I watch the head angle and the way the light hits the birds face. When I am happy, I push the shutter button. As it happens, if the bird is facing away from me the light cannot strike the face at all.... IAC, I never think eye contact. In most cases, I do not know or care what it means.
Does that make any sense?
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
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Welcome Andre, You raise many good points. My opinion on those two images is in Pane 37. As there have been 361 or so comments, that pair is old news.
Did you miss this in Pane #1:
Important note: this is an ongoing thread. You can learn a lot by scrolling down but if you have played before and are re-visiting it would be best to go to the last page and scroll down to see the latest offerings.
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
E-mail me at samandmayasgrandpa@att.net.
I remember elsewhere in this thread that you said you never used the term "eye contact", IIRC.
But, as a consequence of the "right" head angle, don't you almost always get good eye contact, too? So it's a byproduct of what you're striving for: the best head angle.
And while (non bird photographer) viewers won't necessarily be able to articulate it, they'll respond more strongly to the image with the strongest eye contact, all other things equal, because that's where the emotional connection to the wildlife in the image is made.
Yes. A perfect head angle often results in what many folks would consider good "eye contact." I just don't think of it that way. And I am not sure that I would agree that all types of folks will like an image better if they feel that the wildlife subject is looking at them.
Many folks have remarked after studying a collection of my work that I seem to have some "connection" with my subjects. That I consider a supreme compliment. The funny thing is that while they all use the word "connection" none have every mentioned "eye contact."
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
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I like B. I think this is the best head angle of the 3, but would like it much more if it was just a few degrees less towards us.
Andre, Please excuse my comments in Pane 363. I did not realize that Peter had labeled the three hummer images A, B, & C and thought that you were talking about the second pair of images on Page 1.
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
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Yikes. Now I see that my assumption was correct :) No harm no fowl :) Anyway, it is good to have you here Andre.
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
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On their own, i would have been happy with any of these. B is my preferred HA, but C is to me by far the most interesting and appealing image because of the iridescence of the gorget/head.
Usually the iridescence is only seen with more head-on angles, but often when viewed directly head on (a "preferred" HA), individual feather details become blurred because the HB can change the feather angle to help create the effect. Thus HA can become a secondary consideration, and to quote Artie - "the gorget rules".
I suspect the same may apply for other species where special head coloration or feather markings may make some images more appealing with less than ideal HA's.
Thanks for the comments
Hi, All.
From a pure HA viewpoint, I have a slight preference for B, followed by A, followed by C. I wouldn't delete any of them.
I'm pleased to see the question of eye angle being raised, because I do think it's important.
Firstly, let me say I agree with Artie about the fact that, in the field, the best thing you can do is to press the shutter when the head angle is right, because it's almost impossible to tell at that point exactly where the bird is looking. What I do think, though, is that eye angle becomes more noticeable in post-processing and can then be used as one factor in deciding which is the best image of a set to keep (see the eagle shots AS and AT for illustration).
Actually, for most bird species, there are two different ways in which a bird can look at you - using one eye or two. Without turning their heads at all, birds can look in a range of different directions. If they see something they're particularly interested in, they will often turn their heads so that they can make use of both eyes, especially to get the depth perception benefits of binocular vision.
I subscribe to the view that humans generally feel a greater sense of 'connection' or 'engagement' with photographic subjects (of any species) if they feel the subject is looking at them (see my comments in pane #315). Obviously, this corresponds to the situation in which the subject was looking 'down the barrel' of the lens when the photograph was taken.
For the Hummingbird shots, I think the greatest 'eye contact' is in A, followed by B, followed by C. In other words, despite the bird turning its head more towards the viewer (photographer) as you go from A to C, this is actually because the bird is interested in something above the photographer's right shoulder, rather than the photographer himself.
If these were my images, I would therefore be in the (usual) situation of having to balance a decision on conflicting qualities, e.g. best eye angle in A, best head angle in B and best gorget lighting in C.
The choice - if you have to choose just one - depends on your personal priorities. If you're trying to sell images to illustrate a field guide, go with A; if you're producing colourful decorative art, go with C.
I'm not driven by the need to sell images, so I'm free to makes choices in line with my personal 'photographic mission', which is "To capture and convey the beauty, variety and lives of birds through high quality, aesthetically compelling images".
On this basis, I would choose B. A is nice, but 2-dimensional and C lacks engagement and has a tree growing out of its head. B has a pleasing set of angles and overall shape, plus an interested-but-relaxed subject demeanour with good engagement.
Knowing what you're trying to achieve helps with the difficult decisions!
Mike.
I though I responded to this thread but see I did not. I have little to add at this late date. I would go with B given those three choices.
/Jon
Jon Saperia
A does it for me
A for me too. I have a preference, with wildlife, for natural images, if something is looking at me then it has spotted me and I am not part of its natural surroundings or behaviour. I would not delete any, just market them differently ;)
I am late to enter the game....
B for me, A is slightly away and C is too much of a turn.
Because I am trying to publish a bird guide (Blurb.com), using my own photos..I would choose A. The image show the entire head shape and color, bill size in relation to head. I probably would work on the bill a bit, though.
My Blog .....
http://birdquest2004.com/
Assuming that you are talking about the images in Pane 1 and 2 I would agree. I need to get this thread up and running again soon.
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
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E-mail me at samandmayasgrandpa@att.net.
Sorry forgot to include that....I was referring to pane #356, interesting thread.
My Blog .....
http://birdquest2004.com/
I spent almost the entire day being educated on HA's and EA's and fixing pupils and what not - only to realize that this thread has died? Come on, guys! I wanna play too! :-)
Somewhere midway between A and B
Just checked out Peter's three hummer images. What a great bird by the way.
A is too flat, in fact it almost appears to be angled ever so slightly away. I like B and C. I love straight-on heads (like C) because I like to think it's how they see each other when interacting directly.
I am not sure if I responded to this one but here goes anyway: Iin A, I disagree with Peter as as I see it, the bird's head is angled about 1 degree away from the viewer. For me, this is an insta-delete for poor head angle. In B, the bird's head is turned about 8 degrees towards us. Please note that 8 degrees is a lot less than 45 degrees :). B is quite acceptable to me as it is far more pleasing than the head angle in A. In C I'd estimate that the bird's head is angled about 65 degrees towards us. Generally this head angle does not work real well for me--staring right down the lens barrel is usually a great head angle. But with hummingbirds the head angle in C is rather nice as the feathers of the gorget are illuminated very nicely, far better than in A or B.
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
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For this thread with 383 windows/replies, I'd appreciate it if the reply(s) give reference to the subject window number. In this case it is #356.
(Or did I miss it somewhere in reply?)
Tom
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
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Click here for a lesson on good and bad head angles and related bill angle issues for tight head shots of wading birds...
When you are done, let us know which of these two you prefer. Image A here. Or image B in the next pane.
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
E-mail me at samandmayasgrandpa@att.net.
Image B.
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
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Hi Artie. I am torn on this one (panels 386/387). I like the slight head tilt in my direction on 386, but you lose sharp focus on the beak due to the very shallow DOF at that range. I think that kills it and I go with 387 (image B).
Last edited by Ian Cassell; 05-07-2014 at 08:12 PM.
That's the point of the blog post :). And the two images here....
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
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"B" (387) for me.... What a difference. The OOF "A" bill is distracting. I also like seeing the "true" length of this bird's bill in "B".
Excellent blog Artie. (and I did choose prior to visiting the blog!) Love coming back and reviewing this thread periodically. (I have even gotten my husband, who is strictly a P/S pic-taker, to be alert to HA.) Thanks!
www.mibirdingnetwork.com .... A place for bird and nature lovers in the Great Lakes area.
YAW Sandy!
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
E-mail me at samandmayasgrandpa@att.net.
As always, ROCKIN' images and education, Artie!
www.mibirdingnetwork.com .... A place for bird and nature lovers in the Great Lakes area.