canon 7D 28-135 IS USM f/5.6 minor cropping and dust spots removed
comments welcome and appreciated.
Preening flamingo
canon 7D 28-135 IS USM f/5.6 minor cropping and dust spots removed
comments welcome and appreciated.
Hi Steve. Nice composition. You left out ISO, which is very important with this image specifically, and what was the shutter-speed? This image has problems (nothing that can't be fixed) and it helps to know what the techs are. regards~Bill
Thanks William for taking a look. I took this picture a year ago when I first got the 7D I looked back at the data and it does not show the priority mode or focus technique...likely the 19pt at the time although I move to single point as my norm since. f/5.6 ISO 1600 shutter1/2000 sec shot at 135mm.
be very interested / grateful for your help
PS most of the shots I have posted are shots taken nearly a year ago. My techniques I hope have improved after 10000 images but I think it is important to analyze what I was doing then to determine if I can figure out what to fix/avoid now....
again thanks for taking the time
Steve
Steve,Originally Posted by Steve Uffman
Agree with you 100%. IMO analyzing the bad images is the most essential part of improving photography skills. Way to go...
-Sid
Ji Steve. All I really care about is the basics; shutter-speed/aperture/ ISO and what kind of light we are dealing with (high/low contrast). Maybe exposure compensation.
There is quite a bit of noise in the background, so I wondered about the ISO. This can be fixed by blurring or applying noise reduction to it. There are several methods, but in any case photoshop is the tool I use. In avian photography the exposure of the subject is all that is important, at least IMO, and whatever happens to the backgound can be dealt with in post-processing. Backgrounds are much easier to deal with since they often don't have a lot of detail.
The flamingo doesn't look too bad, though it looks like it was shot in direct sunlight. Heck, it was a year ago, what do you expect? The shadows don't have alot of detail, it looks like the shadow/highlight tool, or the eqivalent, has been used to lighten the shadows. Better light (softer) would have been called for. The DOF was probably insufficient at F/5.6. The closer you are to a subject the higher F number you need to get a specific DOF, so a to get a entire bird of this size in sharp focus. May need F/9 or F/11. Just guessing, but I hope you get the point. Hope I've been helpful. regards~Bill
Last edited by WIlliam Maroldo; 01-31-2011 at 10:07 PM.
I really like the pose on this one. Well done. Also the head appears nice and sharp which is always a good thing.
I am not sure how much the bird was moving around and if not too much then s/s could have been lowered quite a bit for a lower ISO and less noise as well as more dof.
The reds also look blown out in places perhaps from exposure in field or pp'n. I can't tell and wouldn'y know how to tell the diff.
I more I work at it and learn how to get it right in the field, the more I find that to get the really top quality photos the more important pp'n becomes.
Looking forward to seeing more.
Dave
Thanks Dave. I have no idea why the shutter speed and ISO are so high. The mode is not recorded in the file..No Photoshop on this or adjustments to the saturation or such in LR3.
I do agree with the getting it right in the field. In fact, I do not produce the really fine focused shots yet. I have read and re read Arties The Art of Bird Photography on sharp focus techniques and have actually been practicing the techniques at the backyard bird feeders field today. Not there yet but making some progress.
Plan to post some more later. would appreciate your comments when I do!
Steve, I agree that we can all learn more from a less-than-perfect image than we can from getting it right. Here, I'd say there are two issues at play that can easily be corrected. First, the reds/oranges are blown in some places and you lose detail because of it. I'd reopen the image in either camera raw or PS and take a look at the colored version of the histogram and see if you can't bring those colors more into alignment. Remember that reds and yellows are the two colors that are easiest to overdo with digital cameras. I have learned to downplay the saturation setting in camera if I'm shooting large doses of those two colors with the understanding that I can always intensify them in PP.
The other issue is a half black/half not black BG. I'd take the whole thing to black and let the colors of the bird really jut out and take center stage. There's nothing in the BG that we can really make out so might as well do away with it. You can either select the BG and open a layers adjustment and scoot the dark tone slider in or you can paint black onto the BG using a soft brush. Either way will work.
