|
|
Re: Virginia Mocking Bird
[Re: Shutter Bubba]
#12464
01/11/08 07:41 PM
01/11/08 07:41 PM
|
Joined: Feb 2006
Donner Summit, CA
glamson
Veteran
|
Veteran
Joined: Feb 2006
Donner Summit, CA
|
Quote:
I had to take it quick as the birds kept jumping from branch to branch quickly.
I am wanting to get into Nature Photography as I am getting older and the wife and I are doing more traveling and slowing down on working..
Also thank you all for the comments good or bad as this is the only way to learn.
Bernard,
Welcome to the forum.
I agree with most of what Durwood and James have alread said and would just add a couple of points. These are strictly my opinions and you can make of them as you will.
Subject: With head on shots of small birds I think the rule is you have got to have good lighting of the head and the especially the eyes. This image breaks both of these rules in spades.
Composition: Frankly, to me it doesn't really look like the pic was composed. It looks to me like a quick capture of a flighty critter. If you did crop it, I agree with Durwood that you seemed to crowd the head into the top left corner. I like the diagonal that the bird forms with those long mocking bird tail feathers which draws the eyes up the birds head. But when you get to the head, it is a dark mass with no detail.
In situations like this the only way to make this into lemonade is through post processing. I hope you don't mind but I pulled down the image and did some quick processing to show you what I would have done with this pic. Even with this web image I was able to get some detail in the head (with the eye). With the low res web image it was hard not to get some chroma noise when bringing up the shadows. With the higher res original, it should be possible to make this work much better. I also cropped it to remove all that empty space to the right. I also hate it when there is a distracting branch coming out of the bird's head so I cloned that out. Finally, it looked a little soft to me so I sharpened it up just a bit.
Again, this is all meant to be constructive and is totally based on my preferences.

|
|
|
|
|
0 registered members (),
1,873
guests, and 3
spiders. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
Forums6
Topics641
Posts1,031
Members3,319
| |
Most Online4,088 Apr 28th, 2026
|
|
|
|
|
|