I'll start us off.

[bulldurham]

I've had a few images stolen and I've had to send nastygrams to two restaurants who paid my fee without argument once they understood that just because it was on the internet, didn't make it free or okay to steal. So I understand your position...opening up the shadows on the back of the rail made the most difference...cheers!

 

[dxqcanada]

Combination of smaller aperture and you may try to get further away to increase the effect of DoF (though you may have to crop more of the final image).

 

[otherprof]

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

What a gorgeous color palette! Now that I’ve had the water drops pointed out, I think I’d remove them. My major problem with this photo is I didn’t, and probably couldn’t take it.

 

[Scott Whaley]

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?

If the OP is using aperture priority mode, then he is using auto ISO by default. Did you mean to ask, "aperture priority or shutter priority mode?"

 

[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?

If the OP is using aperture priority mode, then he is using auto ISO by default. Did you mean to ask, "aperture priority or shutter priority mode?"

no, I meant what I asked. Auto ISO can be used when setting aperture and shutter speed manually.

 

[Pixeldawg1]

I like the composition and as mentioned earlier, the Golden Hour tones are quite nice here. Overall, a nice image. I would recommend you consider looking at the shadows. Are you shooting in RAW? if so, you should be able to work the detail and give a bit more separation in regard to the head and the background. I wish there was a bit more depth of field as well because the back of the bird is somewhat soft, too. I would also have to disagree with bumping up the vibrance or saturation (I personally never touch the saturation and only use the vibrance and in the RAW converter. You may already know this, but vibrance will only effect the color portions of the image that are not fully saturated whileas saturation will oversaturate and effects all color in the scene). When I work in Photoshop, I use the RAW converter because there is so much more control, but if you have JPEG or other formatted files, you can go to FILTER>CAMERA RAW and use many of the same tools, and all in one convenient location, too. I teach my students to do this mostly because I am lazy and don't like having to search everywhere on the drop-down menus for what I am looking for, which can almost always be found in the two options I mentioned. But, as I told you previously, I am NOT an accomplished nature photographer, so take my suggestions with a BIG grain of salt.

 

[zombiesniper]

Thanks @HowdyMark, Still haven't had time to re-work this yet. Only seem to get a few minumtes here and there while at work to check the board lately. Agreed with wrking on the shadows and for wildlife I don't mess with colours beyond what was there, I don't consider it a nature/wildlife shot if it wasn't there.

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?

If the OP is using aperture priority mode, then he is using auto ISO by default. Did you mean to ask, "aperture priority or shutter priority mode?"

I answered this question and nope I don't use aperture priority.

 

[Pixeldawg1]

Thanks @HowdyMark, Still haven't had time to re-work this yet. Only seem to get a few minumtes here and there while at work to check the board lately. Agreed with wrking on the shadows and for wildlife I don't mess with colours beyond what was there, I don't consider it a nature/wildlife shot if it wasn't there.

I understand the work thing. One of my classes this semester has 1,207 online students... Guess who will be automatically grading? In regard to the color, I completely agree. I am not a big fan of shots that I know the color has been punched up to extreme levels. Not sure if you are familiar with a thing called an "ExpoDisc", but it is a simple, foolproof way to get completely accurate (99.97% accurate, if I remember correctly) color. I use one all the time. And in fact, I actually wrote an article about it, and here is the link if you're interested:

Field Test: Expodisc

An old article, but still highly relevant and if you want to be SURE about your color AND spend zero time color correcting, this is it. I am actually trying to get our Cinematography instructor to try it. He is in Germany at the moment and can't get back to China, but when he does... Hope it helps in your shooting.

 

[Overread]

Thanks @HowdyMark, Still haven't had time to re-work this yet. Only seem to get a few minumtes here and there while at work to check the board lately. Agreed with wrking on the shadows and for wildlife I don't mess with colours beyond what was there, I don't consider it a nature/wildlife shot if it wasn't there.

I understand the work thing. One of my classes this semester has 1,207 online students... Guess who will be automatically grading? In regard to the color, I completely agree. I am not a big fan of shots that I know the color has been punched up to extreme levels. Not sure if you are familiar with a thing called an "ExpoDisc", but it is a simple, foolproof way to get completely accurate (99.97% accurate, if I remember correctly) color. I use one all the time. And in fact, I actually wrote an article about it, and here is the link if you're interested:

Field Test: Expodisc

An old article, but still highly relevant and if you want to be SURE about your color AND spend zero time color correcting, this is it. I am actually trying to get our Cinematography instructor to try it. He is in Germany at the moment and can't get back to China, but when he does... Hope it helps in your shooting.

To side track for a second as you've brought up methods for getting authentic exposure/colour. What difference have you found between using a grey card in the scene/light using reflected light off the grey card and using the Expodisc - which far as I can tell from the review uses direct light rather than reflected light. Only direct light would mean aiming it at the sun during the day (bare sun might not be that healthy for camera/operator) or tricky indoors when dealing with multiple different light sources?