New At This... C&C Please?

klongacre

While I've shot sunsets for years, I've never really been successful with birds, etc. Lately I've been very into "trying" to get some good shots with birds after a trip to Florida where my Husband went fishing and all sorts of them sat there waiting for fish while his fishing buddy cut them up for us. I've been out a few times since but these have been my favorites, I think mainly because of the types of birds they were. These are my first real shots out but I'm looking to improve wherever I can, thoughts?! (I've watermarked them for the pure fact that I do them on any photos I upload online, but can take them out if its distracting!)

1.



2.


3.

Dick on Aruba

I think they fairly alright exposure-wise.

Love the pose in the 3rd capture.

Personally I would choose a composition where you give the bird more room in the direction the bird is looking. The Rule of Thirds would have work great here in my opinion.

AceCo55

Main problem for me in #1 and #4 is most of the bird is in its own shadow = lack of contrast so harder to make it "pop"
Lighting is much better in #3 but f11 makes it harder to get separation from background - for me there are too many distracting elements competing with the bird. Agree that the crop here is cramping the bird.

DonRicklin

Love the bird pose in #3, but besides the other points sited, the green dot beside the Heron's head is a total distraction and shoud be desaturated or made to go away!

Nice start, but you do need to learn some basics of composition.

Lots to pick-up here, in that area!



Don

fool4thecity

All good advice so far. Remember to get rid of destracting elements (#3 white bird and green marker out in the water). Looks like your shooting in midday light; that's hard for anyone to pull off great photos. Harsh light turns photos into snapshots.

klongacre

Thank you guys!!!!

NorthernFocus

Mostly it's all been said. The second pelly on the post is much better. Looks like you squatted down to get lower thereby providing a cleaner background. A larger aperture would have made it even better. The last shot of the pelican flying has a nice clean BG but needed that lower f stop to blur the BG. Just to see the possibilities, go into your editing software and blur the back ground on those two and see how much difference it makes.

Be careful, bird photography is very addicting.

klongacre

NorthernFocus -
Thanks! I took these in march and have been out three or four times since... My grandfather photographed "nature" for 50 some years and I never thought I would get into that (I love taking pictures of people!) but now I'm finding that this is a lot of fun and they don't talk back like a 2 year old does

PGM

Kristin, I like the second photo because the bird is well lit. As others have said, a little more room around the bird, especially in the direction it is looking would be good. Keep posting! This forum is too much fun! Best, Pam