Zoo Pics - Critique plz

[Xbethx]

So im pretty new to photography. These are the first "professional" worthy shots ive taken with my Canon T3i.
They were shot with the aperture priority preset. Everything automated and no tripod.
I know the focus is a little soft on some of them but let me know what you think

Thanks
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[Overread]

A few questions:

1) When you say the aperture priority pre-set I assume you mean AV mode on the mode dial right - and not one of the pre-sets like "action" mode.

2) What lens(es) did you use for these shots?

3) What is the aperture, ISO and shutter speed of each shot. You should be able to find this in the EXIF data attached to each shot taken by your camera. You can access this info in a few ways including:
a) Reviewing the shots on the back of the camera, the information normally has the 3 settings used shown as well if you bring up the shot details info

b) Right click the file - go to properties - then the details tab and scroll down. Note when doing it this way be careful of the aperture, it will often list the "maximum" aperture which is the maximum aperture the lens could use - what you want is the aperture (ergo the actual one used for the shot).

c) A photo properties/information/exif option in your editing software of choice (most has the capacity to read this info - some like lightroom even display it upfront in the editing process

4) What (if any) editing have you done to these shots (a brief summary)

5) RAW or JPEG (if you don't know chances are its JPEG)

 

[AlanKlein]

I prefer shots that don't squeeze the subjects too much especially when parts of the animal like the giraffe's ears and lion's and bird's feet are cut off or parts of their body just touch the border. Telephotos are very useful especially with animals, birds, etc. But use them with some forethought . Nice shots.

 

[Xbethx]

Thanks for the replies.

To answer your questions
1. Yes AV mode on the dial
2. Canon 75-300 4-5.6
3. Shot #1- f/5, ISO 400, 1/320 sec
Shot #2- f/5, ISO 400, 1/1600 sec
Shot #3- f/5.6, ISO 400, 1/200 sec
Shot #4- f/5, ISO 400, 1/3200 sec
Shot #5- f/5, ISO 400, 1/3200 sec
4. Only editing done was auto correct in photoshop and added some contrast
5. RAW

 

[Overread]

Few thoughts:

1) ISO 400 sounds like you input that yourself and that was a very good choice. You've gotten good shutter speeds in general for this kind of photography. I'd ideally say 1/500sec or faster is what you want for animals and motion like this. Any slower and you risk blurring the shot.

For handholding the rough rule of thumb is 1/focal length - so with a 300mm lens that's 1/300sec at least (so if you're at the long end of the zoom and keeping to the advice about about shutter speeds for action you should always have a speed more than fast enough for a sharp handheld shot with a 300mm lens).

2) Apertures look like you were wide open the whole time (maximum aperture the lens can use). Not a bad aperture for this kind of photography; although sharpness wise you might find that at the 300mm end your lens isn't its sharpest. You can counter that by stopping down around one stop so going to f7.2 or f8 on the dial just to get back a little of that sharpness - of course this will impact your shutter speed so you've either got to sacrifice the sharpness for the shutter speed or raise the ISO.

3) Don't use Auto-correct in Photoshop. In my (and others) experience Photoshop likes to get all it can out of the shadow areas, which results in it typically blowing out whites when it does things on auto. I'd leave auto correct and auto exposure settings alone.
Editing in itself is a huge area of learning; as much if not more than the camera.

As you are shooting RAW I would suggest a few things;
a) Learn about the "Histogram" so that you can read the light the exposure has given you - both in the camera (when reviewing shots on the back) and in editing. It's a simple tool but very powerful. Look it up there are guides online.

b) Use your eyes and the histogram to adjsut the exposure yourself in editing using the sliders. You can boost it up if you need to or adjust various settings like contrast, blacks, highlights etc.... Play around with them one after the other and see how they affect your shot - note that many times you won't be using big values of change in these - small changes are oft all that is needed.

c) White Balance - these shots all have a sort of hazy colouration of them that suggests the white balance is a little off. You can use the pre-set values when editing a RAW shot for white balance - cloudy or flash or sunny settings can let you quickly adjust the white balance. Or you can use the temperature and tint sliders to adjust it as well.
Note that there are also dipper tools for white, grey and black that you can use to read points of pure white/black/grey in a shot so that you can set the white balance correctly (although if you're not using a test target your scene might not have all the present elemnents - although in my experience even just having one can help).

Again this is another area you want to read up on.

4) AlanKlein has already made mention of the framing - its very normal to get hooked on getting close and filling the frame with wildlife - the cost of which is often clipped elements of the body - horns, ears, tails, feet, claws etc... Sometimes its better to shoot a little wider - get the whole of the animal fully in the frame with a little space around it. You can always crop super close in editing later, but you can't add missing frame elements that you clipped off.

 

[Xbethx]

Thanks so much for the advice.
I re-edited all the images using the white balance presets and adjusting the other sliders without using the auto settings. I know i still have a lot to learn about editing but i think these look better, what do you think?

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