Green Heron

[GinaLola]

Would love some feedback please. Good, bad, what you would do differently, etc. (I already know my shutter speed was too high, aperture too small, therefore ISO too high. I had just photographed something else and turned around and saw this guy. Got caught up in the moment and forgot to change my settings.) Thanks!

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[Rassie]

Nice that you managed to get close enough to the bird for this shot. Often they are far away and that necessitates a lot of cropping.
The +0.7 exposure compensation here resulted in too hot highlights, and they detract from the image. Even though the twigs in the image are not significant to the image, they are there, and they are too bright, ditto the front of the bird's legs. It distracts the viewer from the main subject, the bird. I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me. I keep having to tell myself to really look at the image in the EVF and make necessary adjustments before tripping the shutter.

If you are able, see if you can try and pull down the highlights here.

 

[GinaLola]

Nice that you managed to get close enough to the bird for this shot. Often they are far away and that necessitates a lot of cropping.
The +0.7 exposure compensation here resulted in too hot highlights, and they detract from the image. Even though the twigs in the image are not significant to the image, they are there, and they are too bright, ditto the front of the bird's legs. It distracts the viewer from the main subject, the bird. I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me. I keep having to tell myself to really look at the image in the EVF and make necessary adjustments before tripping the shutter.

If you are able, see if you can try and pull down the highlights here.

Thank you! Are there too many twigs?

 

[Rassie]

Thank you! Are there too many twigs?

There are some things we can control when we make a photograph. We can control the camera (focus, exposure, shutter speed, depth of field, etc.). We can control some of the ambient conditions like time of day, whether we shoot in sunlight or some other time when there is more cloud for softer light, etc. Some things we can change or fine tune during processing such as contrast, white balance, colour saturation, etc.

We cannot control the pose of the bird, the location of the bird, the foliage around the bird, etc. So as for twigs, yes, we can clone out any twigs that detract from the image. You ask whether there are too many twigs, and in my opinion it depends on how much time you want to spend on post processing.

If the intention was to print the image and hang it on a wall, then I would do some serious deleting of many of those twigs. If the intention is just to post the image on social media I might clone out the easiest twigs and not spend too much time on the ones that take more time to remove. Hope this helps.

 

[JP Onstwedder]

Oddly enough, it’s only the out of focus twig near the top right that bothers me a little to the point I would probably remove it. I agree that, if it’s possible to lower the highlights on the twigs, it would improve the image. But it’s a great shot, lovely background, tack sharp, nice pose!

 

[Butlerkid]

FWIW.....if I am out photographing wildlife, I am almost always shooting wide open or 1 stop down. You pay the f stop price using a 2x tele. I shoot auto ISO in manual mode, controlling the f stop and shutter speed. After taking a quick "safety" shot.....take a deep breath and check your settings.

I would have set exposure comp to -0- and checked the histogram while also lowering the shutter speed to 1/800. . Green herons tend to be somewhat still.... you probably have time to dial in a better exposure after the "safety" shot.

 

[GinaLola]

FWIW.....if I am out photographing wildlife, I am almost always shooting wide open or 1 stop down. You pay the f stop price using a 2x tele. I shoot auto ISO in manual mode, controlling the f stop and shutter speed. After taking a quick "safety" shot.....take a deep breath and check your settings.

I would have set exposure comp to -0- and checked the histogram while also lowering the shutter speed to 1/800. . Green herons tend to be somewhat still.... you probably have time to dial in a better exposure after the "safety" shot.

Yep, that’s exactly what I told myself too, after I got home and looked at them and it was too late to fix it!! It was a good learning experience, thank you for the feedback!

 

[K9Kirk]

I don't think 1/1000 s.s. is too high for an 800mm focal length, it wouldn't affect ISO much, if any, and I don't understand why you used f/14 aper. Pinching off the light with a small aper. only helped to drive up the ISO. For something like that I would've used f/6.5 at most, I usually shoot @ f/5.0 or f5.6 to get a blurred bg and let in more light to keep the ISO down. Also, I use AUTO ISO, and I would've used my exposure comp wheel to bring that white down a bit and maybe come off the highlight a bit to bring some more detail to those twigs. It's a pretty good pic overall, just needs s little tweaking.

 

[Butlerkid]

I don't think 1/1000 s.s. is too high for an 800mm focal length, it wouldn't affect ISO much, if any, and I don't understand why you used f/14 aper. Pinching off the light with a small aper. only helped to drive up the ISO. For something like that I would've used f/6.5 at most, I usually shoot @ f/5.0 or f5.6 to get a blurred bg and let in more light to keep the ISO down. Also, I use AUTO ISO, and I would've used my exposure comp wheel to bring that white down a bit and maybe come off the highlight a bit to bring some more detail to those twigs. It's a pretty good pic overall, just needs s little tweaking.

She was using the 100-400 with a 2x tele.......minimum aperture at that time was f11.................

 

[K9Kirk]

She was using the 100-400 with a 2x tele.......minimum aperture at that time was f11.................

I overlooked the fact she was using a 2 x tc. In that case, I would've gone with f/11, and that's still too small an aper. for my taste. Personally, I wouldn't use more than a 1.4 x. I tried a 2x once and immediately returned it, it just didn't let enough light in.