Happy Christmas and New Year to you all. Hope it was a good one.The light has been very poor over the last two weeks here. So I decided to set up a 'studio' style setup near the feeders. Found a nice perch and have three flashs on a wireless trigger. Only getting the hang of this but it has potential. Only the Great Tits, Blue Tits and Coal Tits have been playing ball for now.
I think your set-up may have potential but this one doesn't work for me if I'm honest.
The perch is superb, colourful and interesting but there are a few things that let the image down IMHO.
Firstly, and the thing that first caught my eye, is the bird doesn't look very sharp, although perhaps the original is, I find it hard to tell for certain on these small jpegs.
Secondly, I'm not sure if the flash is giving the optimum lighting here. The exposure is superb but to me the bird looks just a little too evenly lit perhaps, may be worth experimenting with different flash lighting ratio's and perhaps experimenting with various angles to try and give a bit more modeling, which will also help to define more feather detail.
What's the background, is it an artificial one, just out of interest?
Posted by John Robinson on January 3, 2009 at 7:17 PM
I have to agree with Justin on this one,
There is a lot of this sort of photography around at the moment and its as if the photographer is trying to create something "pretty" The trouble is that they end up looking like studio shots.
Ive done it myself many times.
This particular shot could do with the shadows upping from a techie point of view but generally the the bird looks too "posing " Bracket fungus is not often found on a small stump like this to be honest although there are always exeptions.
Stil; agreat attempt so don't be put off by us miseries !!
Cheers#JohnR
Firstly the background is the natural bokeh of the grass in my garden. I really struggle when it comes to processing, particulalrly sharpening. This was shot with a 40D & Sigma 500mm at about 20ft. with a portrait shot square cropped. Exif - 1/250, f/9, ISO - 400. If anyone wants the original shot and walk me through the best way of processing it I would be delighted.
The processing looks ok, certainly with regard to the colours, exposure,etc. The contrast would benefit from a little boost though.
It's hard to give specific advice on sharpening as it really depends on the individual image, the lens used, the subject matter, etc. etc.
As a very quick starting point, assuming your're using Photoshop, or similar, try setting the Unsharp Mask to the following values Amount=100, Radius=0.2, Threshold=0 apply this five times or thereabouts untill you're happy with the result when viewing the image at 100%.
The lack of detail and apparant sharpness is also likely accentuated by the light and ratio of the flashgun's, which, is obviously something that can't be rectified at the processing stage.
Sorry this doesn’t work for me for number of reasons.
1. The great tit doesn’t look sharp on my monitor.
2. There are no shadows, as I once read “Light illuminates, shadow defines”. I suspect that you have all the guns on the same setting.
3. The background if far too even both in colour and definition. Try using a print or “camo” material.
Re only getting Great, Blue & Coal tits, you don’t say what feed you are using ?? Peanut granules works better than whole peanuts, and mealworms for example work well with Robins etc..
For this type of photography a zoom lens for me works best, as you don’t know what species is going to come in next.
You have a good/sound foundation to work from here, look forward to see more.
Posted by Magnus Hird on January 5, 2009 at 5:13 PM
Agree with the others Michael, a bit of sharpening would help on the subject. The background also makes the shot quite dark, but that isn't really within your control. But the set up is in place and I'm sure there'll be other things along for when the light improves
Discussion
6 repliesHappy Christmas and New Year to you all. Hope it was a good one.The light has been very poor over the last two weeks here. So I decided to set up a 'studio' style setup near the feeders. Found a nice perch and have three flashs on a wireless trigger. Only getting the hang of this but it has potential. Only the Great Tits, Blue Tits and Coal Tits have been playing ball for now.
MJ
The perch is superb, colourful and interesting but there are a few things that let the image down IMHO.
Firstly, and the thing that first caught my eye, is the bird doesn't look very sharp, although perhaps the original is, I find it hard to tell for certain on these small jpegs.
Secondly, I'm not sure if the flash is giving the optimum lighting here. The exposure is superb but to me the bird looks just a little too evenly lit perhaps, may be worth experimenting with different flash lighting ratio's and perhaps experimenting with various angles to try and give a bit more modeling, which will also help to define more feather detail.
What's the background, is it an artificial one, just out of interest?
There is a lot of this sort of photography around at the moment and its as if the photographer is trying to create something "pretty" The trouble is that they end up looking like studio shots.
Ive done it myself many times.
This particular shot could do with the shadows upping from a techie point of view but generally the the bird looks too "posing " Bracket fungus is not often found on a small stump like this to be honest although there are always exeptions.
Stil; agreat attempt so don't be put off by us miseries !!
Cheers#JohnR
Firstly the background is the natural bokeh of the grass in my garden. I really struggle when it comes to processing, particulalrly sharpening. This was shot with a 40D & Sigma 500mm at about 20ft. with a portrait shot square cropped. Exif - 1/250, f/9, ISO - 400. If anyone wants the original shot and walk me through the best way of processing it I would be delighted.
Cheers MJ
It's hard to give specific advice on sharpening as it really depends on the individual image, the lens used, the subject matter, etc. etc.
As a very quick starting point, assuming your're using Photoshop, or similar, try setting the Unsharp Mask to the following values Amount=100, Radius=0.2, Threshold=0 apply this five times or thereabouts untill you're happy with the result when viewing the image at 100%.
The lack of detail and apparant sharpness is also likely accentuated by the light and ratio of the flashgun's, which, is obviously something that can't be rectified at the processing stage.
1. The great tit doesn’t look sharp on my monitor.
2. There are no shadows, as I once read “Light illuminates, shadow defines”. I suspect that you have all the guns on the same setting.
3. The background if far too even both in colour and definition. Try using a print or “camo” material.
Re only getting Great, Blue & Coal tits, you don’t say what feed you are using ?? Peanut granules works better than whole peanuts, and mealworms for example work well with Robins etc..
For this type of photography a zoom lens for me works best, as you don’t know what species is going to come in next.
You have a good/sound foundation to work from here, look forward to see more.