Caspian tern ?

tong

I went out shooting the other day and caught what i think is a Caspian Tern. I'm having a little trouble getting the bird's eye to stand out. I tried to do a brightness mask but it comes out un-natural. Can someone point me in the right direction? Also if there is anything that I can do to beter the picture, feel free to let me know.

Albert Dickson

A tighter crop and off center the bird a bit.
As far as the eye goes, unless you get a catch light in the eye it is tough to make the eye stand out. A terns eye is as black as its crown. Here is an example of the catch light.

Good luck and keep shooting.

tong

Thanks for the tip Albert. How far were you away from the bird and what focal length did you use?

I shot that picture with a 30d and a 70-200 f/4 at 200mm and 1/1000s (I was probably 15-20ft from the bird?). I noticed that if i cropped my pictures its not as sharp anymore. I was fairly close to that bird though. A lot of my other shots are not as sharp cropped (probably because of my working distance was too far). For an average bird the size of that caspian tern, what distance should I be standing away from the bird/subject to get a good crop to fill the frame and still be fairly sharp?

IMG_1475-fixed.JPG

raptorcaptor

A good general rule for birds is to keep the sun at your back , and watch the bird for the right head angle for catchlight in the eyes. Also when cropping leave more space in front of the bird than behind, and try not to crop out any part of the bird unless you are going for more of a portrait shot. Hope this helps!

Also not a Caspian, but a Forster's tern.

tong

raptorcaptor wrote:

A good general rule for birds is to keep the sun at your back , and watch the bird for the right head angle for catchlight in the eyes. Also when cropping leave more space in front of the bird than behind, and try not to crop out any part of the bird unless you are going for more of a portrait shot. Hope this helps!

Also not a Caspian, but a Forster's tern.

Thanks for the tips Glenn.

As a side note...I took my 30d and xti out on a tripod today to compare the pictures taken at about 60 feet using my 70-200mm at 200mm. My xti seems to produce a sharper picture. I thought the sensor on the 30d was slightly bigger, which would produce a better quality picture right? I think i might take my stuff to canon to get it calibrated...

raptorcaptor

tong wrote:

Thanks for the tips Glenn.

As a side note...I took my 30d and xti out on a tripod today to compare the pictures taken at about 60 feet using my 70-200mm at 200mm. My xti seems to produce a sharper picture. I thought the sensor on the 30d was slightly bigger, which would produce a better quality picture right? I think i might take my stuff to canon to get it calibrated...

One thing you might check before you take it in is that on the 30D you can set the sharpness settings yourself. I don't know if this is true for your xti.

tong

raptorcaptor wrote:

One thing you might check before you take it in is that on the 30D you can set the sharpness settings yourself. I don't know if this is true for your xti.

Both camera were set to 'Standard' with a sharpness setting of 3.

When shooting birds is there a disadvantage for setting the sharpness too high (3 versus 7)?

raptorcaptor

tong wrote:

Both camera were set to 'Standard' with a sharpness setting of 3.

When shooting birds is there a disadvantage for setting the sharpness too high (3 versus 7)?

No disadvantage! I usually sharpen my images at the size I'm going to display them as, so 3 is good.

JohnDC

Tong --- As the others have said, it really depends on the angle of the light. Here is a photo of the same species of tern at the same place at Bolsa Chica, but the sun is much lower in the sky, giving strong frontal lighting to the bird and its eye. I have many other shots of the same bird in the same place, but the eyes disappear against the black feather cap.

Just as an experiment for this post, I used the "levels" settings in PhotoShop to reduce the contrast of this image and to reduce the darkness of the blacks in particular. Then I dodged the slightly lighter rim and reflections of the eye.

(By the way, I think this is probably a Forster's tern, not a Caspian. Note the black-tipped bill and orangish feet.) --- John

Ric Grupe

Cool bird...and good advice herein.