Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

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Braxton L

Braxton L

Well-known member
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Hi all,
I got this shot today. Although the lighting wasn’t ideal and the backgrounds were tricky, I think I managed a decent photo. Critiques welcome. Thanks.
Canon eos 70d with sigma 150-600mm C lens
1/160 sec at f/7.1, ISO 640. Handheld.
1668299457730.jpeg
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It’s a decent enough portrait of a gnatcatcher. I like that you framed it well, and have a nice catchlight in the eye. Congratulations! A few suggestions that might improve the overall image: its a little soft, so perhaps shooting on a monopod or tripod would help steady the camera, and maybe at f8 to get more of the bird in focus. Also, as you mentioned yourself, the busy background is distracting, especially the white spots, which draw the eye away from your subject. Keep up the good work!
 
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Abinoone said:
It’s a decent enough portrait of a gnatcatcher. I like that you framed it well, and have a nice catchlight in the eye. Congratulations! A few suggestions that might improve the overall image: its a little soft, so perhaps shooting on a monopod or tripod would help steady the camera, and maybe at f8 to get more of the bird in focus. Also, as you mentioned yourself, the busy background is distracting, especially the white spots, which draw the eye away from your subject. Keep up the good work!
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This is the problem with being a bigger birder than a photographer. Personally, I feel that a tripod limits my mobility, especially when I’m walking around and there’s birds in flight that I NEED to document. If I had a tripod, I don’t think I can get all the photos I NEED as a birder, whether they’re good or bad. Of course I would’ve bumped the SS and aperture up, I’d I had a camera that’s better at high ISO performance, but I don’t currently have to budget to do so. I will play around with removing those white spots when I get a chance. Thanks a lot!!
 
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BAL Land said:
This is the problem with being a bigger birder than a photographer. Personally, I feel that a tripod limits my mobility, especially when I’m walking around and there’s birds in flight that I NEED to document. If I had a tripod, I don’t think I can get all the photos I NEED as a birder, whether they’re good or bad. Of course I would’ve bumped the SS and aperture up, I’d I had a camera that’s better at high ISO performance, but I don’t currently have to budget to do so. I will play around with removing those white spots when I get a chance. Thanks a lot!!
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Understand completely. If you’re mainly interested in documenting your birding finds, then this is far more than adequate. Nice work!
 
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I completely agree with your desire to leave the tripod at the house. However, your ISO was a reasonably low 640 and your shutter was a pretty slow 1/160. Personally I could have easily lived with an ISO of 1250 enabling me to get a shutter speed of 1/320 giving me a much better chance of having a sharp image.

Noise I can attempt to mitigate. I can't fix blur, at least not to the extent I can reduce noise and still have a very workable image.

I always shoot with a shutter speed that insures a sharp picture, ISO be danged. Steve had a great video about this. If you are fortunate enough to have a subject sympathetic to your photographic goals, shoot some shots with plenty of shutter speed insuring sharp images. Then keep lowering your SS attempting to get sharp images with lower ISO.

And yes, the bright spots in the background are a bit distracting, but this is a small quick moving subject that is difficult to photograph. It's a good image, one to be proud of. I like it. Thanks for sharing.
 
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IMO, this is a much better shot. Not sure if the bird is over exposed, but the BG is a bit bright. If you use LR, you might try masking for the BG and lowering those highlights/exposure a tad. Might make the bird stand out a bit more.
 
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I do not see any metadata on the second shot. FYI if you use the preset that @Steve put together for this page then your meta data will appear with the image instead of you having to type it in.

The first shot ... the shutter speed is to slow and your not in focus and a bit over exposed. I do not know Canon well enough to help out more. When I was shooting Nikon DSLR's I did use Sigma lenses and always found the Sport models significantly better than the contemporary ... but I have see some great shots with the contemporary but far more with the sport.
 
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Ken Miracle said:
I do not see any metadata on the second shot. FYI if you use the preset that @Steve put together for this page then your meta data will appear with the image instead of you having to type it in.

The first shot ... the shutter speed is to slow and your not in focus and a bit over exposed. I do not know Canon well enough to help out more. When I was shooting Nikon DSLR's I did use Sigma lenses and always found the Sport models significantly better than the contemporary ... but I have see some great shots with the contemporary but far more with the sport.
Click to expand...
Canon EOS 70D, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DG OS HSM | Contemporary, f-stop f/7.1, Shutter speed 1/640 sec, ISO 320
 
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