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I'm outa here


irsteve

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Wildlife

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Please understand the bird has just left the nesting box - there was

very little time to re-act and and wings are beating FAST ... this

was not an easy shot and I would welcome any comments/suggestions for

improvement

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Your Request for Critique comment tends to denigrate a nice photo.

 

There are some points to make about a photo like this which has a somewhat 'busy' background.

 

One is that as a photographer with some patience, especially with a nesting bird, you can choose your background. This bird is certain to go back and forth to a nesting box from time to time, so if you plant yourself there, and are patient, choose a background that is suitable and analyze its takeoff pattern, you can essentially choose the photo you want.

 

If you analyze past photos for shutter speed and determine whether you want blurry wings or 'frozen' wings in mid-beat, you can do that also, though it may take a trip to the photoprocessor if you're taking film (and some notes for shutter speed if you don't have a 'data back' on your film camera), but if you're using digital, just look at your EXIF information to determine aperture -- for depth of field -- and shutter speed -- to determine how much more or less you want the wings to blur and if you can 'stop' the bird mid-flight as you probably must (it takes a slower shutter speed to stop a bird coming toward you or going away from you than one crossing your path, and higher shutter speed for a longer lens and greater distance from you also (if you want the bird to fill the frame), also.

 

So, decide if you want the wings blurry or not, determine the minimum speed necessarfy to capture the bird mid-flight, then position yourself near its nesting site after analyzing its take-off pattern (all birds take off generally the same way from such sites), then look to see what you want to include in the photo and what you want to exclude.

 

If you use a larger aperture, you'll blur the background more, especially with a telephoto, and a smaller aperture, the reverse. Same with a narrower field of view versus a wider field of view.

 

Then you have to position yourself and choose the background, the shutter speed, the aperture, and await the bird to cross the path (I recomment using one open eye for the viewfinder, and another open eye to follow the bird's path -- a little tricky to do, but well worth it for tracking rapidly moving things, especially with telephotos).

 

You literally can compose a photo by following these suggestions; it can transform your photography and it'll all be your work (these hints just may speed things up a little.)

 

If might be interesting to look at two things I've done to compare.

 

Look in my folders for a photo of a bumblebee caught midflight near a Watsonia plant (plant is sharp, bees wings arfe blurred, bee is sharp, background is blurred because of large aperture and long telephoto lens).

 

You also might want to look at my extraordinarily long Presentation 'Photographers, Watch Your Background' which draws on my photos to show how to compose using just your placement, shutter speed, aperture, timing and a sense of composition to 'create' the photo you want rather than just 'capture' it.

 

For in a sense, as you get more adept, you will do more 'creating' than capturing.

 

This is a fine enough photo and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it; it's not a 7/7 but it's perfectly fine.

 

But you might want to use the tools I've referred to above, and in a month or two, reconsider how you might have made this into a 7/7 and see if also those 'tools' don't improve the rest of your photography.

 

My very best wishes.

 

John (Crosley)

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