Golden Hour Redhead

Gallery: AvianPosted June 16, 2018163 views5 comments

I was in the Wisconsin northwoods and noticed this woodpecker near our cabin. The photo was taken during the sunset golden hour. I did have to use the pop up flash to add some fill. I sure wish I had the canon flash with me.
Canon T5i
Sigma 150-600C hand held and bracing myself against a tree.
1/30 second using pop up flash
ISO 800 F 7.1.
How can I make this better? Should I darken the background a bit?
I have a lot to learn. Thank you for looking.
Brian

Comments

5 comments

Comment posted by Keith Bauer on June 16, 2018 at 3:22 PM

Brian:

Looks like some very pretty light with a great opportunity. Fill flash was a good idea, but hard to tell if you had enough, or if you used some negative exposure compensation to help balance the overall dynamic range.

The biggest issue is the image is just not sharp. Not surprising at 1/30 hand held. I know the T5i is not a high ISO champ, but this is an example of keeping the ISO down to help with noise and ending up with a shutter speed that is just not fast enough. Noise can be worked in post processing. Soft images can't. Also could have achieved a bit more shutter shooting at f/6.3 rather than 7.1. Yeah, not much but every little bit helps.

Registered on November 20, 2003, 458 Posts, 4836 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on June 16, 2018 at 10:18 PM

I wouldn't darken the background. that glow behind the Woodpecker is awesome. I do agree with Keith on the shutter speed. That's slow even for a tripod with a subject that can move. One thing you can try in a situation like this is to shoot bursts and take a lot of images, if the bird will cooperate. Sometimes you'll only get one really sharp one out of fifty, but one is all it takes. Sometimes you won't get any, but electrons are cheap.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by John Tobias on June 16, 2018 at 11:28 PM

It is soft, and that certainly distracts from a nicely positions bird in interesting light. What was the length setting of your lens? Was it 600mm?

Registered on September 12, 2009, 2120 Posts, 6455 Comments

Comment posted by David Bogener on June 17, 2018 at 3:57 PM

A little soft, but a nice warm backdrop amd a classic pose.

Registered on October 30, 2013, 417 Posts, 1255 Comments

Comment posted by Brian Murphy on June 23, 2018 at 2:43 PM

Thank you for all of the advice. I have invested in neat image to help with noise reduction. The T5i is terrible over 800 iso.
Any other advice is deeply appreciated.
Brian

Registered on November 15, 2015, 35 Posts, 50 Comments