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Hey guys,
Please let me know what can I do better next time. Any comments, suggestions or w/e are more than welcome.
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Those look pretty good. If I had been taking those shots, I would have tried to get a little lower to the water. I'm not sure how far away that bird was, but I may have tried zooming in more to have it fill more of my frame. Obviously, if I didn't have the zoom abilities that wouldn't be possible. You may want to consider cropping those down a little more so that the bird becomes a larger piece of the picture. Hope that helps!
~mike~
There's a few ways to go about this.
early morning light will look a lot better
think about your backgrounds more when composing
get a boat and get closer
Shot #1 has the best exposure. Agree with zoom more or crop more.
Adding a circular polarizer will help reduce the glare off the water.
Well I couldn't really do anything of what you suggested, I'll explain:
Getting lower - couldn't do that as there was some kind of wall which I was leaning on and put my camera on it using my homemade beanbag, so I was already at the lowest level I could be at.
Zooming - I wish I had a 70-200 with me, but all I have right now is the 17-85 and these were all shot at 85mm.
Cropping - these are already cropped. Yes I have 15mp to work with, but I think that if I cropped more then the pictures wouldn't be very sharp. I'll post in a few moments a 100% crop or close to that to show you.
Early morning light - I agree, but I don't like getting up early [:P], and besides, I went to the park with friends for a BBQ not taking photos, but of course I took the camera with me and took few shots (if ~100 is "few" haha).
Thinking about the background - yes I try to do that but most of the time when you are taking the shot you either forget to do that or don't have time... and there is a third option actually - there's noting you can do to change the background - It was a small place surrounded by walls so I couldn't do much to change the background.
Get a boat - lol it was actually a small place with walls around it as I said, so you can't go there with a boat.
Adding a CPL - you are right, but I still don't have one [:(]
Ok here is a larger version, I cropped more tightly and resized it to fit this site (it's almost a 100% crop).
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I prefer the 100% crop [:)] It still looks pretty crisp and it really focuses on the intended subject.
Thanks Mark, I agree. I thought the 100% wouldn't be sharp enough, but obviously I was wrong - the homemade beanbag actually did a great job! [:D]
yes lower, near the water or in the water. In the early AM hours the wind is less = better reflection. Police up lose loose feathers. And, get the bird to smile. A can of sardines works wonderfully for Fowl or 4 legged animals.
Here is an edited version I made today, what do you think?
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_3nu5cxOgw5k/Sp...0/IMG_2450.jpg
Did you just change the white balance? I like it better. I think the colors are more interesting/pleasing to the eye. I tend to like things on the warmer side though so you may want to wait to see what other people have to say [:)]
I actually changed so many things that I just don't remember what exactly I did, but WB is pretty much the only thing I did not change - I played with it but it didn't make anything better, just worse, so I ended up not touching the WB.
I like the warmer side too, I believe it's natural.
Wow! I was way off!! How did you change the colors so drastically without touching the WB? Were you editing the RAW file or the jpeg? Canon DPP of Adobe PS?
RAW, LR2.
To get this color I changed the saturation in 3 different channels (under the "HSL" box):
- Orange: +100
- Yellow: -19
- Blue: -100
In the "Camera Calibration" box I also changed:
- Tint: -7
- Red Primary:
- Hue: +31
- Saturation: -7
- Green Primary:
- Hue: -100
- Saturation: +21
- Blue Primary:
- Hue: -69
- Saturation: -29
Well, the water looks like a nice sunrise - but the head of the bird is bright like at high noon. It looks romantic, but not natural...It's just my opinion.
Well I actually never thought about it this way, but I guess you are right.
Welcome to the forum!
...but it's a nice trick to get a sunrise atmospere!
Thanks for greetings!
Hi Oren,
Whites can be very tricky to get right, without losing detail. Photographing them during harsh lighting conditions compounds the problem.
As you indicated, you didn't really go there to photograph the birds, but to enjoy a BBQ (I hope the food was good [:P] ). You did ask for suggestions as to how you could make the shot better and I think that I can offer you a practical one (no boat required!). Although, in fairness to earlier posts, some of the other suggestions (early morning light, etc) were good suggestions, and folks are just trying to offer some helpful advice.
My advice is a technical tip: Turning down your EV when shooting birds with white or bright colored (i.e. yellow) feathers, when shooting under strong light, will allow you to help retain detail in the feathers when you PP. Shooting in RAW also allows some extra flexibility.
Give that a try next time you have the opportunity and see if that helps you keep some of those details without blowing out the whites. Even if you don't have any of the super long telephotos, it doesn't mean that you can't still have some fun trying to capture a few birds with thecamera and lens that you do have!
Dave