Hello,

This is my first post and I am so excited to share my pictures with you. I am relatively new to wildlife photography, however, I specialize in animal behavior for a living and after many missed opportunities for "money shots", I finally decided to purchase a DSLR!

I will be honest, I am still getting the hang of it - I am still learning techniques involving ISO, aperture, and shutter speed, yet, in so far..I am loving it! While I predominantly purchased this camera for Africa (where I have been/will be working on my research) - I am first trying to learn the mechanics and basics in the areas where I live (both US and UK).

Anyways, here are my first photos (literally from this week).

I am slightly disappointed in my photos..however, I am still happy and eager to share them with you.

Here is a link to my Flickr account as I do not know how to load photos up directly to the forum (if anyone can provide some inference than I would be much obliged)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/125799115@N04/

Note: I am also a novice with editing, however, there was some minor tweaking via exposure, saturation, and sharpness via lightzone..I still do not know how to layer).

(also...I have a Nikon D5100 and a nikon telephoto 70 300 lens af-s vr)

Hi, and Welcome!

I took a look at your flicker account. Looks like you have had a lot of fun seeing some really cool things. Don't get discouraged that the photos are not coming out the way you want them to. You just started a week ago. Given that, i think you did great for your start.

There are some definite places where I think a little technique could have turned some of the shots in to real winners. Is there a photo in the group you wish to start with?

Thanks
James

James,

Thank you so much for the compliment and for viewing my photos!

I am having a hard time deciding between the deer photo and the photo of the ducklings. The reason for this is that the deer photo is nice, however, it is a bit grainy and there is a bit of exposure. Same goes for the ducklings..I like the interactive behavior shown in it..however, it is a bit "off".

I think one of my issues is that I am having a hard time with balancing aperture, iso, and shutter speed..especially in darkly lit scenarios. This becomes even more confounding when I try to switch these settings (if the animal is moving or staying still). Most of the photos that you see were taken either at dusk or in a forest with low levels of light.

Im sorry! I digressed! Would you mind starting with the ducklings or the deer? :-)

Alec

https://www.flickr.com/photos/125799115@N04/14380300797/in/photostream/

Let us start with the deer.

It is a nice, soft image of a white tail deer. It is, however, a really difficult exposure to get given the light source behind the deer. First am I right in assuming it had been under exposed and brought out in post processing? I ask this because there is more image noise on the deer's neck, face and back thigh than I would expect.

James

you are 100% correct. I tried to bring out some of the colours by using the hue/saturation tool in lightzone. I did a few other things, however...I don't recall what :-/...mainly just sharpening and raw exposure.

Hi Alec,

Sorry for the long delay. I was out pretty much all day yesterday. LOL, I am WIPED. It was a great fireworks display though - possibly the best I have ever seen.

Anyway, OK. Now that we have that piece figured out, my assumption is that your camera was set to meter on the light source behind the deer. i.e. you exposed for the bright light and not for the deer, which means that the dear got real dark. So, when exposing an image, you need to make sure that you are exposing on the object you want, and not what the camera thinks is right. This can be done a few different ways. I typically junk the 'zone metering' that is on the camera. I use a 'center weighted' meter which uses a weight towards what is in the middle of the frame. There is also something called 'spot' metering, which allows you to pick one little piece of the frame and use that as your specific, perfectly calibrated spot to meter from.

Now, in either case, this image would have resulted in a properly exposed deer, but the bright light in the back probably would have blown out. Also, depending on how dark the deer was, you may have found that the shutter speed was going to get realllly slow, meaning that if you are hand holding, it might cause shake problems. As I said, this was a tough image to pull off.

OK. Does this make sense? If it does, we can move to the actual composition itself.

James

yes it makes sense! thank you!

Ok. Let's go to the composition now. This is a really sweet, pleasing photo. However, there are some things that might make it a stronger composition.

1. In this case, the deer is really your subject. It is not part of a landscape, this is a portrait. With that in mind, you really need to be thoughtful with your foreground and background. For example, the branches crossing the front of the image.

2. In terms of the deer, her tail is cut off. Also her hooves. I am fine with this so long as the composition is stronger as a result. I am not sure what the photo gains without these elements in this case.

3. In terms of exposure, if at all possible, get that sun behind you so that the light is falling (as much as possible) on the deer.

Does this sound reasonable, Alec?

James

Thank you so much for the information - I agree that I have to be very thoughtful of my composition - especially in a heavily forested area where there is alot going on. In terms of lighting on the subject - that is something that I undoubtedly have to work on as I often take photos around sunset or in a forested area - this is especially true since I am only taking photos in aperture/shutter priority and manual.

Thank you once again for the commentary!

You are welcome! It is enjoyable to discuss things in depth. Do you want to discuss another image?

James