I'll start us off.

[zombiesniper]

I'd like to start as an example of what I thing a post should have in order to to make it easier obtain a critique that targets an issue someone may be having. Obviously not all of this is required but as much info as can be posted will help.

First off. I'm quite happy with this image but there's always room for improvement.

-Tech Specs
Canon 7DmkII/w Canon 500mm F4L
1/800, F4, ISO 125

-Lighting
Golden hour sunlight at about 6:20am

-Why did I take the shot?
This is my primary form of photography and I love shooting wildlife.
Obviously not a long planned out shoot but I do keep in the back of my head the types of images I want so when the occasion arises I can take advantage of them.

- What was the goal?
My goal was to get an environmental shot in the morning light.
I normally just make backgrounds disappear into a buttery smooth array of colour.
With this shot I wanted the background so that the Rails environment was recognizable.

- Did I achieve my goal?
Nearly, But not quite.

- If I could, what would I change?
I normally shoot a pretty thin DOF in order to crush distracting backgrounds but here I think I should have got down to about f8-10 range to get more of the Virginia Rail in focus. I had plenty of room to lower my shutter speed to compensate. Since this is it's natural environment and it is so close I'm not really blurring it as much as I normally would.

-What critique am I looking for?
Other than opening up the aperture or backing up to get more of the scene (I like the close and personal look of this shot) is there another way I could have made the reeds more prominent.

Also open to anything else that you may notice.

Virginia Rail by Trevor Baldwin, on Flickr

 

[jcdeboever]

I would try to increase the shadow luminosity and bump the yellow saturation and luminosity. I may try to lower the blue luminosity but not sure until how the yellow edit made the reeds pop. Probably a slight bump on the orange in the same way as the yellow but not as much.

 

[zombiesniper]

I'll give it a try and see how it looks.

 

[SquarePeg]

Not necessarily a critique more of a technical question...I know it’s not in flight but 1/800 seems slow to me for birds. Do you use aperture priority or auto ISO?

 

[Tropicalmemories]

I really the golden hour tones, and they go nicely with the colors of your subject - almost looks like a portrait shot, which is my favourite genre.

To me, the birds head blends too well with the background - probabably an occupational hazard with birds, so it's not easy to see where the subject ends and the background begins. If possible, could the background be made darker or the subject lighter? Or perhaps the narrower depth of field you mentioned would have helped?

 

[weepete]

I think this is a quality shot.

I like the depth of field here and I think that while there could have been a little more it falls under the creative choice banner in this shot.

I really like the blue of the water set against the golden light falling on the bird and the small ripple in the water.

With the background, I don't think there's much you can do here to get the reeds to pop, but if they are lightened it'll compete with the bird too much. I do think they are recognisable enough to give a good impression of the environment.

The only thing I would do is burn the oof reed in the bottom right of the frame.

 

[zombiesniper]

A good morning for input.
Thank you to all.

Not necessarily a critique more of a technical question...I know it’s not in flight but 1/800 seems slow to me for birds. Do you use aperture priority or auto ISO?

I shoot mostly manual with auto iso while doing wildlife. 1/800 is actually still quite quick for this shot since the bird was really only moving at half walking speed for a human. If it began to fly I'm usually pretty quick with the shutter speed wheel.

To me, the birds head blends too well with the background - probabably an occupational hazard with birds, so it's not easy to see where the subject ends and the background begins. If possible, could the background be made darker or the subject lighter? Or perhaps the narrower depth of field you mentioned would have helped?

Agree that the tones for subject and background are very similar. Tends to be the nature with birds for camouflage but I'll see what I can do. Less DOF would do the opposite of bringing out the reeds more but yes it would make the front of the bird more prominent. It may make the focus fall off a little to quickly on the head though.

The only thing I would do is burn the oof reed in the bottom right of the frame.

Good idea. It would make that corner less distracting.

 

[Overread]

A few thoughts:

1) With wildlife (and a lot of nature) one of the big risks is that you can get tunnel vision with regard to the subject and composition. You end up so focused on the animal as the subject that trying to bring other elements in, such as the background/environment, can take a back seat to the point where even when you try and work outside of the box, your method is still tunnel visioned in on the animal.

If anything I think that if you want the environment to be clear then you want to be showing far more of it. This shot is great, but its very much designed and shown as a portrait of the animal first and foremost. With the composition "as is" you could have used a smaller aperture (bigger f number) and indeed brought more of hte background into focus a bit more. But you'd still have a portrait and then a "busy background" might be seen more as a distraction rather than as a part of the animals habitat. I think that if you wanted to keep this kind of composition, close in on the animal, then the background needs to be much closer to the animal. So likely right when its poking its head out from the reeds rather than when its already moved "away" from a part of its environment.

Otherwise if there's greater separation then a landscape style shot might suit better; shift your thinking into one putting the background first as the subject and then have the bird as the secondary element - even though the bird is likely still a primary.

2) I'd be tempted to make a few minor edits to the shot.

a) I'd brighten the length of the beak on the upper side and base where its naturally darker and where there is a bit of shadow. The animals breast and head are all well lit so adding a bit of light to the rest of the long face won't seem out of pace and helps the beak separate from the dark shaded back of the bird.

b) Under the front of the bird there's a row of four or so dots. A spray of something most likely, I'd be tempted to use the spot heal tool and remove those.

c) Lower right corner there's a foreground out of focus reed or other object. This is probably the biggest distraction in the shot and something that I'd prefer wasn't there. I appreciate that in the wild such distractions can be very hard to avoid and in some cases impossible. In this case the area is too close to the long foot of the bird to crop off, if you cropped the bottom off there you'd be cutting into the bird; similarly if you cropped the right side off you'd be eating into the natural angle of direction of the beak (even though the animals actual eye and gaze is going left, with birds someitmes the beak can be almost akin to the "eye direction"). You might be able to use the clone and heal tools to remove it.

 

[zombiesniper]

Good points.
A and C I'll be looking into. For me I like the four water drops, but then again I was there and know this bird was on the move and caused it. I'll look at removing them as well and see how I like it.

Thank you.

 

[wannabe photog]

Good points.
A and C I'll be looking into. For me I like the four water drops, but then again I was there and know this bird was on the move and caused it. I'll look at removing them as well and see how I like it.

Thank you.

This photo is a good use of the light in a changing/moving situation.
Those water drops add to the realism of the scene, when I see them.

Be aware, I'm very new to attempting good photos or commenting on good photos, so it's probably necessary to consider that in what I say.

 

[Designer]

-What critique am I looking for?
Other than opening up the aperture or backing up to get more of the scene (I like the close and personal look of this shot) is there another way I could have made the reeds more prominent.

I think you have already hit on one component that you probably regret, and that's the DOF.

Personally, I think having more of the bird in focus would make this better, and that would also mean more of the reeds would be in focus as well.

I really like the light in spite of the fact that the tail is in shadow.

 

[Overread]

Good points.
A and C I'll be looking into. For me I like the four water drops, but then again I was there and know this bird was on the move and caused it. I'll look at removing them as well and see how I like it.

Thank you.

As someone who wasn't there I think the issue is that the drops are in a horizontal line toward the birds body, but there's no real apparent motion in the bird following that direction of movement. If they were drops falling from the beak, or being thrown out by moving legs/wings then yes they'd have a good place, but right now they are just sort of "there" in the scene.

 

[zombiesniper]

This photo is a good use of the light in a changing/moving situation.
Those water drops add to the realism of the scene, when I see them.

Be aware, I'm very new to attempting good photos or commenting on good photos, so it's probably necessary to consider that in what I say.

Thank you.

Don't be afraid to give feedback. Most people have something to contribute. The key to it is, why is something in the image distracting or why something didn't work, how to correct it and communicating it in a direct yet respectful manner.

-What critique am I looking for?
Other than opening up the aperture or backing up to get more of the scene (I like the close and personal look of this shot) is there another way I could have made the reeds more prominent.

I think you have already hit on one component that you probably regret, and that's the DOF.

Personally, I think having more of the bird in focus would make this better, and that would also mean more of the reeds would be in focus as well.

I really like the light in spite of the fact that the tail is in shadow.

Thank you.

I agree the two easiest things I could have done was move back which wasn't possible or open my aperture which I should have done. lol

Good points.
A and C I'll be looking into. For me I like the four water drops, but then again I was there and know this bird was on the move and caused it. I'll look at removing them as well and see how I like it.

Thank you.

As someone who wasn't there I think the issue is that the drops are in a horizontal line toward the birds body, but there's no real apparent motion in the bird following that direction of movement. If they were drops falling from the beak, or being thrown out by moving legs/wings then yes they'd have a good place, but right now they are just sort of "there" in the scene.

Agree.

I'll be looking at the image again in the next day or two and will come here to also review edit suggestion. I'll post a re-edit when I've completed it.

 

[bulldurham]

Aperture is just fine. Next time in that situation, add a +.07 EV all birds in the filed with a +.07EV and mostly because I shoot a lot of BIF (I shoot because gives a fill light to the underbody/wings, yet keeps the sky natural. One of the things I find for a C&C page that doesn't exactly make sense is the inability to edit your work and not because I think what I am doing is better, but that there just might be a tool or technique you can learn from. I have the saved image because I did edit it so I could make my critique. What I found was the back of the Rail was too dark against an already dark and somewhat busy BG. To counter this, I did a selection of the shadow area, made a curves layer in PS, changed the blend mode to "screen," then feathered the selection to blend better. This opens up the shadow, thus pulling the bird forward. I did a color balance adjustment in the blue channel, a minus on the blue a touch, then did another blue channel in HSB and desaturated the blue a tad and lightened the blue a tad to make it less dominate in the scene, thus, again, pushing the bird forward. Lastly, I did a content aware fill on the bottom right stalk and then cropped to a 5x7 format putting the head close to the upper left quadrant.

Perhaps you could state that editing on images in this section are allowed, but nowhere else...it would make critiquing and making editing suggestions easier. I do have the edited image with the edit layers shown if you would allow it to be seen.

And as always, it's just another opinion, and never meant to change your mind or disparage your own "mind's eye."

 

[zombiesniper]

Still haven't had time to look at this again.

Good points on the shadows. The blue and crop I like where it is. I wanted to get the background and the colour is as it was to the eye.

Editing my images isn't going to happen. I used to have it as ok but just too many bad edits and one website decided that since it was okay to edit, they'd just steal the image, edit it and place it on their page as their own work.