Oystercatchers

[sapper]

Another birdy pic taken on my trip up north.

E 5 50-200 @ 200mm 1/500 f 5.6 200 iso

[Tordan58]

Re: Oystercatchers

Hi Dave,

You post on the "looking for perfection" and I guess you accept critical feedback.

The picture is nice, depicting the birds in a natural posture and environment (often seen sitting on a boulder, alone or two of them). From the front bird's stance I guess he/she was about to fly - do you happen to take a sequence of pictures?

However the picture lacks detail to qualify for being a really good bird photography.

My personal experience is that Oystercatchers (and other black birds e.g. coots) are difficult to photograph with good detail rendering as soon as light conditions are poor (which I believe is the case with overcast sky). What I mean is the structure and texture in the feathering will turn true B/W resulting in loss of detail. A prerequisite to achieve good results is the presence of some sun lighting up the subject. It does not need to be bright sunny, it does not need to come straight from back, even the slightest sunlight will help. Some careful toning of the deep shadows can help but don't overdo it, you want to preserve the black.

One distinctive feature that is missing is the characteristic red eye that stands out when sunlit. It tends to be 'absorbed' by the black head.

A last one: when photographing waders (and also birds on water), try if possible to shoot from as low position as practically possible to get a low perspective. You could partially achieve this result by cropping the picture; I would crop away all the out of focus water in front of the boulder, the backgound shore and about half of the water behind the birds and then the perspective changes to the better. Lastly perhaps crop a bit L/R if you think the perspective gets to wide.

Hope this is useful,
Tord

[sapper]

Re: Oystercatchers

Yes Tord, I do accept critical feedback.
Thanks for your comments. I did get another shot when the bird on the right took off. They don't allow us to get too close
I will try and bring out some detail in the black. There is some detail in the eye on the original but it is lost on here.

[David Morison]

Re: Oystercatchers

I agree with Tord that a bit of judicious cropping would focus more attention on the birds. I've taken lots of images of Oystercatchers and always had difficulty in getting a balance between detail in the black and the white (easier on a dull day) and getting a bright red eye (better in bright weather). One solution I've tried is HDR but using ISO bracketing as the subject would unlikely to be stationary. This certainly gives acceptable results but being able to use only 3 images can still be a bit of a "shot in the dark".

David

[sapper]

Re: Oystercatchers

Thanks David.
Here is an amended version.

[sapper]

Re: Oystercatchers

Hi Dave,

From the front bird's stance I guess he/she was about to fly - do you happen to take a sequence of pictures?
Hope this is useful,
Tord

Here is the other shot as one is taking off.

[Tordan58]

Re: Oystercatchers

Thanks David.
Here is an amended version.

Hi,

This is actually rather good, it has much more detail than I would have hoped for. If you are prepared to share the original (RAW or JPG) I could try to see if there is more detail to extract - I will of course not share it further. You could email it to me.
/Tord

[CallaWolf]

Re: Oystercatchers

I agree with Tord - the cropped version is far superior...and if you do have a raw version, I'm certain there's more detail to be found

[Tordan58]

Re: Oystercatchers

I agree with Tord that a bit of judicious cropping would focus more attention on the birds. I've taken lots of images of Oystercatchers and always had difficulty in getting a balance between detail in the black and the white (easier on a dull day) and getting a bright red eye (better in bright weather). One solution I've tried is HDR but using ISO bracketing as the subject would unlikely to be stationary. This certainly gives acceptable results but being able to use only 3 images can still be a bit of a "shot in the dark".

David

Hi,

I share David's experience about the difficulty of getting the balance between detailed rendering and exposure balance. The best results I have achieved were in smooth yet good light, typically low standing sun or hazy.

And yes, coming close enough is a challenge. By the way I just noticed you posted information about lens used and focal length. 200 mm has 6.2 degrees angle and (assuming the the first picture is the full frame) I would estimate shooting distance for the shot should in the order of 40 meters. They will sometimes allow you to come closer but 200 mm is a bit on the short side for this application. However, thanks to the 200mm being such high quality lens, cropping is possible without losing too much detail.

/Tord

[sapper]

Re: Oystercatchers

Hi,

I share David's experience about the difficulty of getting the balance between detailed rendering and exposure balance. The best results I have achieved were in smooth yet good light, typically low standing sun or hazy.

And yes, coming close enough is a challenge. By the way I just noticed you posted information about lens used and focal length. 200 mm has 6.2 degrees angle and (assuming the the first picture is the full frame) I would estimate shooting distance for the shot should in the order of 40 meters. They will sometimes allow you to come closer but 200 mm is a bit on the short side for this application. However, thanks to the 200mm being such high quality lens, cropping is possible without losing too much detail.

/Tord

I was on holiday Tord, on a cruise. I did take my 300 2.8 with me but it was too heavy to lug around sightseeing
I will email you the original, if you can do more with it I would appreciate you telling me how. I don't have PS, I use Lightroom.

[Tordan58]

Re: Oystercatchers

Hi David,

I have emailed you the results I managed to achieve.

Regards
Tord