First time - Cropping and composition

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This is my first serious attempt to take iamges of birds, so I am looking for any comments and suggestions. The equipment used: Nikon FE, MD12, Nikon 300m f4 with a Tamron SPAF 1.4x teleconverter, Nikon A2, tripod. I believe this bird is a juvenile Great Egret which landed about 20 feet from me. I exposed the image at -2 stops from the camera's meter because of the dark plummage, but it retrospect, I think -1 stop would have been better.

I used Fuji Provia 100F and the slide came out a bit dark, which made scanning difficult (HP S20 using Vuescan and Adobe Photoshop 5.5). I had to do a bit of adjusting to the light and color levels to bring it back to the slide. I do plan to try it again this weekend. Thanks.

-- Andrew Vera (averacpa@bellsouth.net), August 08, 2000

Answers

Sorry about the image in the post. I think I corrected it:

http://averacpa.simplenet.com/photos/great_egret_juv01.jpg

-- Andrew Vera (averacpa@bellsouth.net), August 08, 2000.


Need a image first

-- Keith Anderson (andos@pacific.net.au), August 08, 2000.



-- Andrew Vera (averacpa@bellsouth.net), August 08, 2000.

Well for a first effort this is great. I know this will cause a concern but believe it or not this is slightly overexposed. If you looke at the white plumage on the front of the bird there is no detail. In Animal photography it is generally better to have detail in the brightest part of the animal in this case the birds chest. Now if you were to underexpose htis another 1/2 stop the only way then to get the dark plumage right is to use fill flash. Aroung 1 2/3 underexposure on the flash gun will bring detail back to the dark areas.I hope you follow. So you expose for the highlight in the animal and then use flash to bring up the shadows. Last point is get a 81A filter and have it on the camera at all times. This has a very slight blue hue to it but that could be the scan

-- Keith Anderson (andos@pacific.net.au), August 09, 2000.

Very nice for your first attempt. Agree with Dennis on all points. This is back/sidelit which is pretty tough when first starting out, but at least you have the right idea about the lighting. Without flash you eithrt lose the highlights or the body detail. When starting out try to have the sun always at your back, makes for easier exposure. Even the experienced have trouble with this type of lighting

Doubt very much this is a juvenile great blue, much too small, with a 400mm at 20 ft, you would only get a great blues head and neck, no body. Juveniles are big. Looks more like a Green heron, due to yellow "patch" running in front of and around the eye.

Good effort.

Steve

-- Steven Sisti (Stevesisti@aol.com), August 09, 2000.



The color balance on this bird seems pretty good - it's a Green Heron and the spotting on the back makes me think it's an immature bird (Green Herons do, in general, have a greenish-bluish overall cast to the mantle and wings, although less so in the juv/imm). The contrast seems a little high (shot at midday ?) which is probably tough to overcome for this particular shot. If this bird was full-frame, you it might have been better to take the teleconverter off and shoot at 300mm because seeing more of the bird might help the composition - in this sort of posture I try and shoot herons in vertical format (but Green Herons often hunt in hunched over horizontal format too).

I too find the image underexposed, and given the apparent light direction it would be very difficult to preserve detail in both the back and the white chest highlights, fill flash or no fill flash. Less contrasty lighting, with you between the sun and the bird, would help you there.

Good image, though.

Phil

-- Phil Jeffrey (pjeffrey@hotmail.com), August 10, 2000.


Here are two other shots of the same bird. I am still working out the kinks in the scanner.



-- Andrew Vera (averacpa@bellsouth.net), August 10, 2000.


I don't follow the suggestions about fill flash. Surely the fill fash would illuminate the white areas as much as it would illuminate the dark ones? I would have thought that the problem was simply the range of tones present in the bird, it's very difficult to capture detail in such a wide range of tonalities.

-- David Bertioli (david@cenargen.embrapa.br), August 10, 2000.

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