Black-capped Chickadee
Canon 7D lens 100-400mm, focal length 400mm
1/640, 9.0, 400
Taken New Year's Day at Wellfleet, MA (Cape Cod) Audubon. Cold snap had broken and birds were enjoying the start of good things. No crop but did try out some basic LR edits: such as increase exposure, sharpening. Any suggestions? thanks Ann
Ann,
To start, you have selected a beautiful subject!!
On my monitor the image looks exposed well with breast area of the subject sharp.
The eye and bill look a little soft, that could be due to subject movement.
Your subject is dead center. Esthetically this image could be improved by having your subject more right in the frame. Typically you want your subject to have more room in front of them, or into the area they are looking.
Learn how to use you AF lock button in AF Servo or switch to One Shoe AF so you can re-frame your subject after you acquire sharp focus.
Thank you James, I'll work on those settings. Appreciate your comments. Ann
hey Ann,
I really like this one. that is a beautiful little bird - great exposure and eye contact, and I love the colors and those little toes. James gave you the best suggestions - another thing to start adding in is watching the background -if you notice you have branches etc intersecting with the bird, try to move one way or the other a little to see if you can get a clear space behind it.
Originally Posted by pat lillich
Pat,
Great advise. In particular, I love the fact that you said "watching the background -if you notice you have branches etc intersecting with the bird, try to move one way or the other a little to see if you can get a clear space behind it.", rather than cloning.
The slight change in position can save you a lot of time later. I call the adjustment in angle to get a cleaner image "the geometry of photography".
Great shot of this Chikadee. I love how fluffed up it is and great exposure. Good advice from James and Pat.
Peter
James nailed the critique suggestions for me but I wanted to add how lovely the updrafting feathers are! That really adds a very nice touch to the image, Ann. :)
James, I agree with the idea of cropping this from the right side (right where the inner OOF mostly vertical branch ends looks about right to me). I do have a question about changing the angle for a better background, though; it looks to me that if Ann had moved to the right, she'd have had at least one more OOF branch intersecting the bird in the BG, and possibly had a less-desirable head angle on the bird. If she had moved left, the two OOF branches in the right BG would have intersected the bird. The way the branches slant, angling up might have been worse, and I can't see where angling down would have been a lot better. Am I missing something here, because I can't see an angle where the BG would have been much less cluttered (assuming one wanted to photograph the bird facing in this direction)? I'm hoping I can learn something here.
Cute pose, Ann. I love the fluffed up feathers and the head turn. I agree with cropping out some of the space on the right. Nice capture.
Nancy
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