Fantail

[Christopher Moses]

Hey guys, not perfect I know but what I like about this photo is the colours (especially the greens) and the fact that this is a hard bird to snap with a slow autofocus, so i used manual. The BG might be a bit distracting and the twigs in front of the bird are not ideal, but nothing can be done about that!
Heres the details:
40d + ef 75-300mm II at 300mm
manual focus
ISO 100
1/250
f5.6
no flash
enhanced contrast and saturation in iphoto and a bit of a crop.

Thanks for any critiques :D please do comment as i have much to learn....

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Chris,

Thanks for posting you will learn plenty here, I do every week. The first thing that jumps out is the busy background and the color seems over saturated. Remember the subject must grab the eye, when other things distract the image is weakened. A couple of technical issues. I use AF, but I an 56 and wear glasses too. I also use a higher ISO and never use 100. Most nature photographers (Canon guys) use 400 or 200. This gives more flexibility for exposure. For example, when you double the ISO you gain a stop of light. In this case ISO 200 would have been allowed a 1/500 shutter and possible a sharper image. Anyway, lots to process I know so here is my advise. Control the background to ensure the subject shines, do not over saturate images with post processing and do what you can to gain sharpness.

The bird has a nice head angle and great pose. The eye is clean and bright, you are on the right track. Keep em coming.

[Gerald Kelberg]

Hi Chris,

Nice to see a little Fantail on the site and good to see that you are posting. It is a good start.

There are a number of points with respect to the image as posted that you can learn from. You already realise that the twigs in front of the bird detract from the image - always better to have the bird in the clear with a nice clean background, no out of focus elements in front . But that can be pretty difficult to achieve, so you will want to work at it. These are tiny little birds, so you must have been pretty close to get it at this size with 300 mm. For your next shot, let's see it with the tail fully fanned out!

The first impression of the processing is that the image looks over saturated and possibly a touch too contrasty. Feather detail on the bird looks quite sharp, which is good. The whites on the throat and brow of the bird look as though they have been blown and lost all the detail, so that is something to watch out for. Yes, you can recover the whites to some degree, but you don't get the detail back once it is blown.

I haven't used iPhoto for post processing - most of the people here are using Photoshop but that can be a big outlay when you are getting started. Maybe you can get a copy cheaply with a student license. You will probably find getting a copy of Artie's Digital Basics is worthwhile - there is much to learn there. And you can also learn a lot just hanging out here on the BPN and getting Artie's blog.

Looking forward to seeing more unique NZ birdlife from you!

Gerald

[Jeff Cashdollar]

We have a Tutorial & Education Forum as well. It references several great books: The Art of Bird Photography and Digital Basics are two of the best IMO. Scan through the threads and see what you find. I have always found this interesting for beginners.

http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...e-photographer.

[Christopher Moses]

Thanks heaps guys, I'm already learning so much!! Lots of great advice, and I'll try put it to use this weekend...

[Kerry Perkins]

Christopher, welcome to ETL!

The first thing to talk about is the contrast - you have both blown whites and blocked blacks, which equals mega-contrast. Harsh light has given you a challenge, and your addition of contrast and saturation actually made the image worse. What you need to do in these situations is lessen the contrast and try to contain the peak whites. Better yet, don't over-expose in the camera! Good job with the manual focus, unfortunately most of the bird is hidden by twigs. Hard to make out where the end of the tail is, but I think it is clipped at the top of the frame. I'm sure you will have better opportunities to capture this interesting bird. Keep them coming and hope you have a productive weekend! Try to get the little guy in a more isolated spot with a cleaner background, would be really nice.