Still learning...

tong

This is my first post on dgrin hoping to get some good feedback.

A few weeks ago I went to Bolsa Chica Wetlands to take some bird shots. I took those shots back to learn from them and I found many mistakes. I'm hoping to get some feedback from some of the experienced shooters out there. I've been looking at some of the pictures posted here and they are sharp as a tack. I'm hoping to achieve the same. I think part of my problem is I'm not getting close enough to my subject so I zoom into my picture too much thinking it's not sharp.

The attached picture was taken stright out of the camera with a canon XTI w/ a 70-200 f4 handheld at 1/500Sec., F8.0, ISO 100, at 200.0 mm in aperture priority. Some how this pictures does not 'pop.' I also think its underexposed. Should I have metered differently?

Maestro

I brightened your photo up a bit and added some more color.



This was done with just some basic tweaking in Photoshop, Levels, Curves, Hue and Saturation and some Selective Color changes plus Unsharp Mask.

As far as the underexposure of the photo, depending on the light I think I would have used a smaller F-number giving your sensor more light available to it to use although F8 really isn't all that small, but F5.6 probably would have been fine here. At the working distance you were using plus a 200mm max focal length, I think you did a fine job on capturing the bird. If this was a handheld shot, the sharpness will be affected by motion even if it is slight. I don't the sharpness really is the problem here, but the underexposure.

ShepsMom

I don't think it look bad at all, you might want to open your aperture a little more. How was the weather? I too have 200mm lens and i don't even bother with birds that's too far, they don't come out too good. I have to use a lot of processing to get what i want. The power of PS is unlimited Also, you can adjust your exposure compensation to accomodate the lighting. I gave up on shooting in modes, i now do only manual, it gives me and camera whole lot more accuracy. Keep on good work and keep on learning and posting!!

Harryb

Welcome to Dgrin and congrats on your first picture post.
You did pretty well on that shot considering the tough lighting you were shooting in.

The bird was backlit so the front of your subject was shadowed. Now normally I would have passed on the shot and looked for a subject in better light. If you are going to go for the shot you have to understand how your camera is going to meter the shot. I'm assuming you were using matrix metering, in this case the camera's meter averages the light from the whole scene and sets the shutter speed (you were in aperture priority). The bird was darker than the average so it will be underexposed. Opening up your aperture setting ( a lower number) won't help because the camera will still be metering the shot the same and will increase the shutter speed in response to the new aperture setting.

What you have to do is make an EV adjustment, in this case a positive adjustment (slowing down the shutter speed) to allow more light onto the scene. I think an adjustment of 2/3rds of a stop ould have nailed the expsoure on your subject.

There's some good information to be found here and here and here

tong

Great tips everyone. I'm actually taking a photoshop class this semester so hopefully I can apply those techniques to my photos. My goal is to spend more time shooting and less time on the computer so the more corrective action i take in the camera the better.

I like the photo Maestro fixed up. It really brought out the colors of the bird and the overall picture looks brighter.

The weather at the time was semi-clear sky.

I'm starting to learn to shoot in M mode. I've found that using Aperture or shutter priority doesn't always cut it. I need to learn things like EV adjustments as Harryb suggested.

I checked the file and the metering was set to center weighted average. Should i have been on evaluative, which agerages the light from the whole frame?

Since I've started to shoot in Manual, I noticed that if i try to shoot my subject against something bright, (like the sky) the camera tends to expose the for the background, creating a shillouet. From what I've read, the camera can not handle the difference in contrast so you have to manually adjust the exposure (slight negative exposure?). Is there a rule of thumb for shooting a subject against the sky or a backlit subject? I was reading through the Ron Reznick sticky after posting this. His posting explains my question but I'm going to have to do some research on EV values.

Thanks for the links Harryb.