I really seem to struggle with these birds. Its not been the best weather but today was bright so went out for a quick go. The image below was taken with the following settings and it would be great if someone could point out some improvements which could be made. To me the image just doesn't look good but is that just me being fussy.
Hi Simon- Coots are not easy. An essentially black and white bird in bright sunlight presents an exposure challenge for camera sensors. Having said this, you have done a pretty good job here. I checked the white "shield" and it's not clipped, although most of the pixels are very bright and little detail is apparent. And you have detail in the dark areas.
It sounds like you went out because it was bright, but this is exactly not what you should be doing for a bird like this IMO. Try to go out in overcast conditions when the light is more even and less contrasty. You will be a lot more happy with the results.
other points- I would crop tighter on the bird and post a larger image, that way the impact of the subject will be greater.
Agree with what John said about the overcast condition, will help with high contrast bird like this. For this image since the whole bird seem to be parallel to you I might even try for smaller aperture so the background would blur out even more, will help separate the subject.
Thanks very much for all the great advice. Here in the UK, overcast days are never a problem so I should be able to manage that one. Agree on the DOF. I used a higher f number purely because my lens seems to be at it sharpest around f8. I may go back and reprocess this. Thanks again.
Coot - Can you advise ?
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