Managed to get the feet this time

[Grumpy John]

Following on from this thread I made a trip down to some coastal towns on Westernport Bay in search of some birdlife.

#1 Just another gull.


#2 Balancing act on a post.



#3 Ha! anything you can do I can top it. Balancing act on a ball, on water no less.


#4 Juvenile Pacific Gull. I would appreciate some serious critique on this image. Are the OOF gulls distracting, or do they add interest?

[Grumpy John]

One more, this one from Cannons Creek.
I believe that this is an Australian White Ibis, possibly a juvenile as the head is not the customary solid black. Feel to correct me if i am wrong, I'm very new to identifying birds and I rely on an App on my phone for ID.

#1 Full image


#2 Cropped.

[Isac]

All cool shots John. It's good you've learnt to get the feet in the shot

Last lot - you are correct, Australian White Ibis. What edits did you do? The reason I ask is that they look a tad soft to me and colour looks odd.

[Grumpy John]

All cool shots John. It's good you've learnt to get the feet in the shot

Last lot - you are correct, Australian White Ibis. What edits did you do? The reason I ask is that they look a tad soft to me and colour looks odd.

Not much PP done in this one Isac.

Some minor adjustments in ACR


In CC2020 I selected the background and gave it a 9.0px Gaussian Blur to separate the bird a tad as I thought it was getting lost in the BG.

In what way does the colour look odd? I can post the unedited image if you want to see it.

[Isac]

The original would be good John.

[Grumpy John]

Here ya go.

[Isac]

Thanks John. When you blur the BG try using the Tilt-Shift Blur in the Blur Gallery, it's much more realistic. It also eliminates the halo around your subject. Here's a tut PHLEARN.

[Grumpy John]

Thanks for the link Isac. The lack of halo was because of the way he isolated the subject, not just because he used the Tilt-Shift Blur (I'm sure you know this, just clarifying for other readers). I believe that the Gaussian Blur was the best option for this image, but I will do it again using his method of isolating the subject.
Tilt-Shift Blur must be new to CCxxxx
Did you do a hue adjustment on the foreground foliage?

[Isac]

I do a slightly different way. I remove the subject to a new layer and while it's still selected, expand it by a few pixels and then use the "Content Aware Fill" to remove the subject from the base layer. It does a good job and faster than the spot healing brush (although it has much the same effect).

Tilt-Shift Blur is in CS6 but I'm not sure about previous versions of PS. It's always in the Blur Gallery.
You can use the Gaussian Blur to get a similar effect but you have to use a Gradient Mask to get get the DOF effect. Just as easy I guess but you have more control using Tilt-Shift.

Yes, I used a couple of HSL layers for the colour changes - just for fun to see if it put more emphasis onto the subject - I think it worked.

[avkomp]

I like the gull on the stick the best of the gulls. a slight rotation to stop it sliding off would improve it a bit though.
feet on the gull is a step up, feeling a lower angle would have helped. notwithstanding not being able to get up again.

I feel the oof gulls in the foreground of the juvi pacific gull detract from the image. you feel they are the subject and cos they are OOF pull the eye away from the main real subject.

as far as the IBIS, the info shows f10 for this shot. wonder why you stopped down so far. but as close to wide open as you could go would have done a few things, lifted shutter speed, or reduced iso. also you would have blurred the b/g better. not sure how far behind it is but every bit helps

[Grumpy John]

I like the gull on the stick the best of the gulls. a slight rotation to stop it sliding off would improve it a bit though.
I used the top of the post as the horizon to straighten the image, the sides however are not perpendicular.

feet on the gull is a step up, feeling a lower angle would have helped. notwithstanding not being able to get up again.
This was the best I could do from the vantage point I had, if I had moved closer they would have scarpered. And you're right, getting up again is a problem for me. I'm going in for an arthroscopy on my right knee next month, this just postponing the full knee replacement I will need in a couple of years.

I feel the oof gulls in the foreground of the juvi pacific gull detract from the image. you feel they are the subject and cos they are OOF pull the eye away from the main real subject.
I tend to agree with you Stephen, although other people have mentioned that they provide a "sense of scale" against the much larger Pacific Gull.

as far as the IBIS, the info shows f10 for this shot. wonder why you stopped down so far. but as close to wide open as you could go would have done a few things, lifted shutter speed, or reduced iso. also you would have blurred the b/g better. not sure how far behind it is but every bit helps
I use F10.0 for my bird shots as it's more forgiving if I happen to miss focus on the eye or beak. Also it gives me a bit more DOF if the bird is face on, or has it's wings spread. I'm quite new to bird photography and still learning.

I notice that you are a Nikon shooter Stephen, I shoot with a Canon 7D MkII as you probably are aware. The 7D has 3 settings on it C1 C2 C3 which can be used to store favourite settings. I have C2 setup for my bird photography. I will try and explain my reasoning for the settings that I have chosen, perhaps you could advise me regarding my choises or reasoning.

Mode: Manual.
Aperture: F10.0 I chose this for the reasons given above, I.E. more forgiving if I miss focus, or to achieve a bit more DOF if the bird is coming torawd me or has a wide wingspan.
Shutter Speed: 1/1250, this twice the longest focal length of my "birding" lens and should give nice sharp images.
ISO: Set to auto to give the best lighting.
Auto Focus: Set To AI Servo, maintains focus on moving subject.
AF Area: Set to Expand AF Area:Surround.
Metering: Set to Evaluative Metering. I use this setting because, unlike Nikon, you cannot set the metering area on a 7D. This is the only setting that meters from the focusing point. (does that make sense?)
Shooting Speed: High Speed Continuous. (10fps)
There are other settings such as tracking sensitivity, focus priority, shutter release priority, in fact quite a few setting that I won't to bore you with here.

If you are interested in where I have been getting some of my information from check these links out:
Setting Up Autofocus Part 1/5
Setting Up Autofocus Part 2/5
Setting Up Autofocus Part 3/5
Setting Up Autofocus Part 4/5
Setting Up Autofocus Part 4/5


Tim Boyer Photography how to set up your canon 7d mark ii for bird photography P1
Tim Boyer Photography how to set up the canon 7d mark ii part ii
Tim Boyer Photography how to set up the canon eos 7d mark ii part 3 auto focus and flight photography

[avkomp]

I use F10.0 for my bird shots as it's more forgiving if I happen to miss focus on the eye or beak.

if the birds were flying you might get away with f10 imho, cos there will be sky etc behind them so not need blurring out.
these birds are sitting there. have a look at the dof scale on the lens. I reckon the dof should cover the bird at a smaller aperture at the range you are shooting.
if you miss focus, practice on not missing focus. not picking on you here, but suggesting how you can instantly improve your stuff.
most pro sports shooters (albeit with fast primes) tend to shoot wide open and it gives good backgrounds and higher shutter speeds for any given iso.
birds in flight I would just about never go beyond f8 and again more open than that if they were flying with background not too far behind.
some of the recent rosellas I shot at around f11, because there was nothing behind them for several hundred metres and it didnt matter.
if you see a picture you like, seek the settings used. (if they did it, you can)

as far as nikon settings are concerned.
I use afc with release priority. highest framerate I can. (can make difference with flying birds because you should get best possible wing positions, otherwise you may get wing over face or something.
on the nikon you can pick the number of active focus points that are selectable and how many you can use for a picture.
so on a pro body it may have 51 or more available to be selected, so you can move af around the frame to get on eye etc, but I use either 1 or nine active.
so that would be 51/9 or 51/1 in nikon speak.
d9 means that if you focus on a point, it would have the surrounding ones active to if the subject moved a bit.

from extensive testing I have found that the more points you are using like 51 /21 for example you have more chance of the camera liking something other than your subject and jumping focus.
if you are using 1 or 9 the camera gets what you want. seems to work faster on focus with less points too.

nikon has a thing called focus tracking with lock on. this can be handy or not. basically it means that if you have focussed on a moving subject and you briefly run off it, or say a tree briefly gets in the way, the camera will hold the last setting for a user defined time before refocussing. 2 or 3 works good for flying birds. note that canon has a similar setting, I cant recall what it is right now and not sure if available on all bodies.

if you have a limit switch on your lens, use it. it will make refocus quicker if you lose it.

I use manual exposure, or aperture priority. is on aperture priority if you might get a pop up target. manual otherwise.

hope that is of some use.

[Grumpy John]

Thanks for all your feedback Stephen. I know the difference between being picked on and being given good advice so no need to apologise. I'm always wary of having the aperture wide open as it's not always the sweet spot, I will open the lens to F7.0, that's 1 stop more light. The lens is F6.3 at 600mm, so F7.0 is almost fully open.

[avkomp]

thanks John. i stop more light and less dof. those perched birds at f11 with stuff behind them will love you for it.