Ducks and Squirrels

CMfromIL · Oct 23, 2011

At the park trying for some action pictures with the ducks. Mainly managed to get the background in great focus...the ducks taking off and landing, not so much!

Here are some that were at least salvageable. I need more practice. Any comments for this novice shooter are much appreciated.

I need to crop the garbage out of the top, but I like the duck landing.

I like the flying ducks and the swimming duck together.

Not sure what kind of duck is in the middle, but I really liked his colors:

This little guy was quite ticked that I was walking by 'his' tree!

Thanks for looking.

Overread · Oct 23, 2011

Could you give a little more info - what camera, lens and other gear you used to take the photos as well as the settings you used at the time for the shots. An idea of your aperture, shutter speed, ISO as well as the focusing mode and method and the metering mode. An idea of what other gear you have as well would also help.

In short the more info you can provide upfront the more others can give you more constructive and direct input into your methods.

CMfromIL · Oct 23, 2011

Canon T3i Rebel, 70-300mm lens. Most were taken between 250-300mm shutter speed @ 1600, ISO 200, F5.6.

Thanks for the comments.

Overread · Oct 23, 2011

1) Exposure and focus look good as does the shutter speed; but the duck is just way too small in the frame to really be the subject; the big waterfall and other background areas intrude and the massive empty space in the shot makes it feel hollow.

2) Ok good points in this shot are that you did manage to get the lead drake in focus on the head and captured the landing just before he hit the water - that is the good side of the shot. Problems however outweigh the good focus and shutter speed;

a) Exposure - if you look at the female duck you can see that most of the main wing facing us is pure white, very little to no details of the wing, just overexposed white; and this is repeated over several other sections of the various ducks in the shot. Bright spots in a photo attract our eye, so serve not only as focal points, but (when they show a lack of detail or pull away from the key focus) a distraction.
A good tip is to always check the histogram in the camera when reviewing shots; a few quick checks early on and see if you are clipping the highlights (the far right of the histogram); if you are check the blinking sections of the preview photo (on most cameras this denots overexposed areas) and if they are hitting major areas its time to use a little exposure compensation to underexpose the shots - its not uncommon in daylight to need up to 1 stop or more sometimes with underexposure from the meter reading.

b) Discord - you've 3 elements in this shot; the two flying ducks (which calls for a landscape aspect shot); the duck swimming away from them; and the duck in the foreground whose mostly chopped up. Because the in-flight ducks are not well framed (ideally you want empty space on the far left for those ducks to fly into, as it is the lead duck is hitting the edge of the frame almost instantly) it leaves the eye wandering - to those bright points - to the blurry duck in the background and to the chopped up foreground duck. So things are messy feeling and there isn't any clear subject.

3) Exposure is good, focus is good adn shutter speed is good - problem is that you're just not close enough/zoomed in enough to really help isolate or at least identify the duck as the main focus. Because he's so small the background and foreground start to intrude on the attention; furthermore the composition is very central (and yes I know full well that middle AF point limits composition when using it). If the duck were more in the upper right corner (think rule of thirds as a good basis for starting) he'd have space in the left and lower corner to move into, without leaving considerable deadspace behind himself.

4) Overexposure is the first thing slipping in, looks like you just clipped it, but with the fore and background ducks being lighter colours they rapidly blow out - being then distractions away from the darker main subject. A tricky think as to underexpose will start to weaken the effect on that duck; this is always a problem when you've key dark and bright areas of the shot that conflict together.

5) SQUIRREL! Ok after all those duck shots this one is much stronger - you've got the focus on the subject, but you've also a shot where there aren't competing elements as your main subject is quite clear; youve also got eye contact with the viewer which really helps with wildlife (one very very hard rule to break is nailing the eye in focus with wildlife). I would be tempted to say consider cropping the left side of the shot to remove the big stick sticking up; not sure if it worth leaving it partly in as a boarder frame or to crop more heavily and have a portrait aspect. Whilst the background is blown out its fairly well controled and is a nice white (not glaring, at least on my screen) so you get that "taken in a studio" effect which we are used to seeing and thus isn't distracting.

Overall - a few slipups with exposure, but you're overall method seems solid. The biggest weaknesses though would be:
1) Angle - with the ducks you really want to try and get lower if you can; above angles give us a view that we are too used to seeing, so getting down to their level and looking at them, rather than down to them really helps present a more interesting angle to the viewer

2) Getting close enough - though I think you know this one already and yes sadly bird and wildlife photography is very focal length hungry - each time you get a longer lens you'll be wanting 100mm more

3) Composition - don't be afraid to crop after taking the shot if you've not other option.