Pheasant Family

Gallery: AvianPosted July 8, 2018119 views7 comments

I came across this pheasant family while driving through the local prairie land. I saw the adults first and did not know there were babies until they spooked and flew. One baby was edited out from the lower left hand corner. I like the way the dark shadows frame the birds but I am wondering if I should crop more and remove the lowest baby bird to focus more on the one baby and adults. The sun was just starting to get a big harsh and the shadows were a challenge. I thought about trying to brighten the male pheasant chest but I though noise would be an issue.

Taken this morning,
Canon T5i
Sigma 150-600C
Iso 800 F8, 1/4000 shutter speed
Please let me know your thoughts. I have a lot to learn.
Thank you for taking a look.

Brian

Comments

7 comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on July 8, 2018 at 2:20 PM

Hi Brian. Nice find and good detail, particularly in the cock. I think your idea of cropping up to eliminate the lower left youngster would give you a better image. Just playing with it on-screen it looks to me as if just below the fork in the branch that touches the lower left youngster would be a good place to crop. I like the window created by the dark leaves above, but I think they're a bit too much. You might look at cropping about half of them from the top. Nice work.

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

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on July 8, 2018 at 2:40 PM

That's really cool to get a family like that Brian. For me the branches on top and the amount of noise are bigger distractions than the grass at the bottom. As far as in camera at 1/4000 you could have dropped the iso to 400 and still had 1/2000 which should have been enough and had less noise. As far as what to do now, I would crop and/or clone the branches from the top and run noise reduction on the bottom (but not on the birds). It's rare to catch a family like this so congrats on a nice capture. devil

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by Philip Hodgkins on July 8, 2018 at 4:29 PM

Good suggestions from Nate and Dennis. I agree with both. Also, I would suggest a white frame, rather than the default dark one provided by the site. The dark kind of overwhelms the image.

Registered on July 24, 2006, 2741 Posts, 12349 Comments

Comment posted by Brian Murphy on July 8, 2018 at 5:55 PM

Thank you for all of the feedback.
I try to educate myself and watch a lot of photography videos. One large camera store sponsored a learning video and the topic was keeping a high shutter speed and not having an ISO lower than 800 so I figured I would try it out. I guess that idea does not work for all applications.
As always, I appreciate the help.
Brian

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

Comment posted by David Schoen on July 8, 2018 at 6:07 PM

The repost is a much stronger crop compositionally speaking. Good color and detail.

Registered on November 6, 2006, 1213 Posts, 4587 Comments

Comment posted by Norma Tareila Matl on July 13, 2018 at 10:22 AM

Brian, you certainly captured the moment the best you could with the harsh light. I think the angle you used was a good one and the fact that you captured all of them together is remarkable. I might crop those upper out of focus tree leaves out of the image all together and just focus on the beautiful pheasant family. You have a great image here.

Registered on October 27, 2016, 229 Posts, 393 Comments

Comment posted by Norma Tareila Matl on July 13, 2018 at 10:22 AM

Gave my comment before I saw the crop. Yes this crop works well.

Registered on October 27, 2016, 229 Posts, 393 Comments