MMM Fishy!!! (C&C Welcome)

[manaheim]

I was stalking this poor bird for about an hour so I'll have several shots of him coming up, but I thought this one was kinda cool.

I'm not much of nature photog and would love to get better, so any critiques, comments, etc. are very welcome.

 

[WTF?]

looks good to me, well framed, crisp focus. two thumbs up.

 

[Overread]

Get your knees muddy!
best thing for wildlife shots to move them from snappy to more interesting is to get down low - that way you present a different angle to the one the human eye normally sees them from. Further it helps to make the animal appear larger - looking at or up to an animals eyes in a photo does this - looking down upon them makes them feel smaller and less impressive

That said you got a great angle on him (staring right at you) and with a fish too! depth of field you might have managed going one stop wider for a little more isolation but f5.6 is probably where I would have been shooting as well - its always tricky to judge how much or how little to have at times. A lower angle makes this easier as it means the background is more distance (especailly when shooting over water) so its going to be thrown out of focus more easily

 

[Photoadder]

Looks nice for me. Waiting for more pics

 

[manaheim]

First off, thanks to everyone for your comments!

To over...

Get your knees muddy!
best thing for wildlife shots to move them from snappy to more interesting is to get down low - that way you present a different angle to the one the human eye normally sees them from. Further it helps to make the animal appear larger - looking at or up to an animals eyes in a photo does this - looking down upon them makes them feel smaller and less impressive

Oh hey, really nice point. I was so in the mode of "stalk the bird... stalk the bird... Oh crap! He has a fish!!! CLICK CLICK CLICK!!" that I kinda spaced on angle.

That said you got a great angle on him (staring right at you) and with a fish too! depth of field you might have managed going one stop wider for a little more isolation but f5.6 is probably where I would have been shooting as well - its always tricky to judge how much or how little to have at times. A lower angle makes this easier as it means the background is more distance (especailly when shooting over water) so its going to be thrown out of focus more easily

Ah yeah, good point as well. I -think- I had the lens open as wide as it would go for the focal length since there wasn't a ton of light and I was trying to keep the shutter speed up so I could grab shots of him when he took off.

By the way you wouldn't BELIEVE the number of REALLY cool shots I got of him in flight where I managed to just clip off the end of a wing or his tail. I'm so mad. I'll put up a bloopers real later, maybe.

 

[Overread]

I think there are phases that many who shoot wildlife go through - one I have noticed are:

1) OMG OMG its a "insert name of animal" shoot shoot!
Basicaly a panic mode form of shooting - you tend not to think so much about the shot as you do about getting a shot, so one tends to spray and pray with the camera. Its always exciting when you find a wild animal that you can get shots of and even more so when its something rare or an animal doing something interesting.

2) Get close Get close Get close!
Comes in two forms, but is similar in both cases - the first form is when you have a zoom, is very easy to just zoom right in to get as close a shot as you can so as to get as big a shot of the animal and also capture as many fine details as possible. The other is where one is always sneaking/tracking closer to the animal. In both cases framing and compositin can end up going right out the window as one shoots

There are likley more patterns - and in general a lot of the problems go away as one gets more experience and starts to understand the animal they are tracking as well as ones own skill at tracking. You get the idea of how close and how long you have with the animal and that removes a pressure which thus lets you think less about spray and pray and more about compose, think and spray!

 

[manaheim]

I think there are phases that many who shoot wildlife go through - one I have noticed are:

1) OMG OMG its a "insert name of animal" shoot shoot!
Basicaly a panic mode form of shooting - you tend not to think so much about the shot as you do about getting a shot, so one tend to stray and pray with the camera. Its always exciting when you find a wild animal that you can get shots of and even more so when its something rare or an animal doing something interesting.

Oh yeah, that's SO me... like the other day, I was in this petshop, and I saw this hamster, right... and ... and...

Seriously, though, since I'm not generally out looking for animals to shoot (except that stupid pesky Leucistic Red Tailed Hawk that lives near my office), I often just happen to notice an anmial doing something and then have to struggle to get the shot.

You have to keep in mind most of my work is shooting large buildings. They really don't move much. Well, most of them don't.

2) Get close Get close Get close!
Comes in two forms, but is similar in both cases - the first form is when you have a zoom, is very easy to just zoom right in to get as close a shot as you can so as to get as big a shot of the animal and also capture as many fine details as possible. The other is where one is always sneaking/tracking closer to the animal. In both cases framing and compositin can end up going right out the window as one shoots

I've found this is a big challenge since the only good glass I have is the 80-200, and I am usually carting around the 18-200 VR. I have a 70-300, but it's pretty marginal and not nearly fast enough for a lot of situations... not to mention given the shutter speed I need at those focal lengths.

Fortunately this particular bird was not too worried about me so I got pretty close... he did, however, eventually get very annoyed and fly away from the lake entirely... which is saying something since he was around this lake literally all day for three days in a row.

There are likley more patterns - and in general a lot of the problems go away as one gets more experience and starts to understand the animal they are tracking as well as ones own skill at tracking. You get the idea of how close and how long you have with the animal and that removes a pressure which thus lets you think less about spray and pray and more about compose, think and spray!

That's cool. Something I definitely need to think more about. Thanks for your thoughts, Over. I knew you would have some good suggestions.