Honduras C&C

[LakeFX]

I've been looking through some shots I have from a trip to Honduras a few years ago in preparation for a trip to Costa Rica in a couple weeks. I'd love some feedback on what I should think about to improve shots in similar lighting conditions. All of these were shot hand-held with a D90 and 70-300VR and are jpegs straight out of the camera, resized for upload, no cropping, no editing, no nothing. I have started shooting RAW recently so that's one comment I don't need :mrgreen:

Thanks in advance!



Originals without resizing are on photobucket

 

[Braineack]

composition wise, mr monkey is the most interesting. The shutter speed on the rest are a little slower than I'd like to see, they are getting a little soft.

one thing about shooting in raw, if you're going to bother, then you should take the time to edit and get the most out of them, otherwise you might as well stick to jpg.

 

[LakeFX]

Thanks for the feedback! Can you elaborate on why the composition of the monkey works better for you than the others? I personally like it better, but I'm trying to get some things to think about when composing.

 

[WesternGuy]

Having spend a few days in the Ecuadorian Rain Forest a couple of months ago, I will share with you what I think I learned from that shoot. I am assuming you are working from a calibrated monitor.

First row - top left - Monkey shot - I found my best shots of monkeys were those that I could see at least their whole face - in yours, part of the face is blocked by a leaf in the tree. Also, it appears as if only the face is in focus together with a lot of the leaves in the tree.

First row - top right - for me, the crop is a bit too tight and the image seems to have a greenish cast to it - not sure if that is a result of shooting in jpeg or not. The entire image is also a bit soft. Not sure why, could be focus, narrow depth of field , etc.

Second row - left - the crop is way to tight. I have shot a lot of birds over the years and my best shots, even the ones from the jungle are where you can see the entire bird - in this one, you have cropped off the end of the beak - quite frankly, it is not that great a shot from a compositional perspective, if that is what you were hoping to achieve. A lot of the beak is out of focus.

Second row - right - not bad - you have captured a very good expression on the birds face, but I still would like to see the whole bird.

Third row - this is a nice head shot of a reptile of some sort (taxonomy is not my strong point), but its eye is in a shadow. In raw, of course, you can often recover the detail in the shadows. When I "expanded" the image, I also noticed that a lot of it is out of focus. This suggest to me that you need to watch your aperture when shooting some of these.

I realize that when you are shooting wildlife in a rain forest/jungle setting, that you often have to take what you can get, but if you have some patience, you can often get better shots. I often will take the first shot I can for "documentation" purposes, but if you have the time to sit and wait a bit, you can often get better shots, particularly of things that are not going to fly away quickly.

The other problem that I see in some of the shots is that they are very soft. I am not sure if this is an artefact of shooting jpegs, as I shoot only raw, so I have no experience to base this conclusion on. It could also be a function of the sharpness of the lens being used, although I would think the 70-300VR should be good even hand-held. It is also possible that since you posted these with no nothing, a small amount of sharpening might improve the image quality - it did with mine . You might also have to consider the aperture that you are shooting these at because this directly affects the depth of field in your images. If you need a larger aperture to get the shot at whatever ISO and shutter speed you are shooting at, then you might consider increasing the ISO to be able to use a smaller aperture and get a greater depth of field - just a suggestion. Yes the noise might be increased a but, but with todays noise removal software, this is not often a problem.

Hope this helps.

Enjoy your time in Costa Rica. I will be interested in your comments and images when you return, as it is on my bucket list.

WesternGuy

 

[Heitz]

Holy crap you saw toucans? Kinda thought those things were like unicorns.

 

[LakeFX]

WesternGuy, that's really useful critique, thank you! These are the sorts of things I want to have in mind on our upcoming trip.

With the howler monkeys, there was not much to work with for angles and light, but I should have thought about waiting for the full face or trying to shift angle. They were above us on a narrow trail, so I can't remember how much that was an option. The framing on the toucans was partially by choice (I tend to frame animals tightly) and partially dictated by circumstances in that they were in large cages in a preserve so I had to shoot through a window to avoid getting the netting. I'll try including the full bird when I get the chance in the future and see how I like that. I saw the image Dolina posted of the zebra dove and I like the way that was composed. I also need to pay more attention to depth of field, although I meant for the one to be a bit silly. I think the softness comes from having the camera sharpening set too low. I recently increased it and everything looks a bit sharper now.

The toucans were in a bird sanctuary in Copan, so we didn't see the mythical unicorns in the wild. The sanctuary was actually one of the highlights of our trip though!

 

[WesternGuy]

I can relate to the cages - sort of like shooting at a zoo, but in the wild it is often best to try and get some of the "environment" in the image, e.g., show the bird sitting on a branch of a tree or walking along the edge of water course such as a river, lake or other wetlands. Search through this forum and have a look at some of the images by posters such as coastalconn and mathewo and you will see how having a bit of the environment in an image makes all the difference in the world to the composition (remember the rule of thirds). If you have the time, I would invite you to have a look at some of my bird images, and others if you care to, on my Flickr page. Follow the URL in my sig and then click on SETS and have a look at some of the Florida 2012 or Florida 2013 images - double clicking on an image will give you a larger version. I don't necessarily mean to blatantly promote my own images, but I have learned from one of the best (Art Morris) and I hope some of it has rubbed off, but at least they will give you an idea of what I mean, by trying to show a bit of the environment. IMHO, it always makes for a better image if you can see a bit of the surroundings of the bird, or any animal for that matter.

WesternGuy

 

[The_Traveler]

Seeing a whole string of bird faces without anything in the scene to provide some idea about their environment is just plain boring. THe reason the monkey shot is better is because it is set in an environment and not just a close-up of a face.

 

[LakeFX]

After looking through your Florida bird sets and some of coastalconn's and mathewo's photos, I get what you're saying about the whole bird. Which is not necessarily that I need to include the whole bird in the frame, but that I need to include some context and environment to make the photo more interesting.

I don't have many bird pictures that fit the bill, but, for example, this one of my dog is cropped tight yet still has enough context and environment to tell a bit of a story. Is that the idea with birds too, or did I miss the point?

 

[WesternGuy]

Well, I think you are getting a bit better, but I would offer the following suggestion that if the animal or bird occupies more that 50 to 60 per cent of the image then you don't have enough of the environment around it for the making of a good shot - this is just my own personal opinion, but having spent two sessions with Art Morris and as a subscriber to his daily blog, I suspect that he might agree with me. I don't usually like to invoke "authority", because Art would be among the first to tell you that is not what he is (an authority), but I learned more about bird photography and photography in general from him in the couple of workshops that I have been on than I have trying to "get it" myself in the previous decade. After all he has been at it for more than 30 years.

I think that the picture of your dog is still cropped too tight, because I still cannot figure out what he is doing. I am unclear as to what the story is. To be honest, it looks like he is trying to dig a hole with his nose or he is scarfing down a pile of dirt :mrgreen:. I suspect that is not what he is doing, but that is what I think it looks like. I would be curious to know why you feel that a tight crop is in order, or is this just something you have always done. Rest assured, if a close crop is what does it for you, then by all means keep it as you are the one who has to like the image. My philosophy is "if I don't like the image, then it is not going to see the light of day" - maybe a bit harsh, but I have to be satisfied with the image before I will show it to anyone. I find that if I like it others like it as well, so I am not trying to change the way you photograph and process your images, just trying to show you that there are alternatives to the way you do things that may, just possibly, yield different results and responses than what you are getting now. The Traveller's comment is well taken.

If you are not aware of some of the top wildlife and bird photographers, I would encourage you to check out the work of people like Art Morris, Art Wolf, George Lepp, Frans Lanting, Laurie Excell, Bill Coster and John Shaw, to name a few. These, and others, are all folks that have been my "inspiration" as I strive to improve the quality of my imagery. I will share with you one reference that I often go to on the web. It is a fair bit of "how to", but the images that are posted in the pages of the web site are very instructive, in my opinion - Secrets of Digital Bird Photography. I trust that you will find it useful.

WesternGuy

 

[LakeFX]

Thanks so much. The rule of thumb to keep the animal to less than about half the image sounds like a good starting point.

The reason I'm asking in the first place is because in order to grow as a photographer, I know that I need to try new things and see how they turn out. I'm not at the point where I am necessarily focusing on the most important compositional elements when looking at other people's work that I like. Thus, these sorts of guidelines are really useful for me.

For the record, digging a hole with her nose and eating dirt while looking at me like "are you going to stop me" is exactly what my dog was doing...

 

[WesternGuy]

.........

For the record, digging a hole with her nose and eating dirt while looking at me like "are you going to stop me" is exactly what my dog was doing...

Then I guess you made your point...

If you are just starting out, and don't want to be weighed down by a whole bunch of compositional "rules" (I prefer to call them guidelines), then I would start by remembering the "rule of thirds", or even more simpler, try and keep the main subject out of the exact centre of your image - this goes for horizons as well. I always try to remember that "things with eyes that I place on the left side of the image should be looking towards the right side of the image" and vice -versa. This holds true for cats, dogs, birds, cows, deer, geckos, iguanas or what ever. You get the idea.

You might want to check this site for a start - Photography Composition Articles Library - look under the "Latest additions" heading.

Hope this helps.

WesternGuy