Critique would be appreciated (1 Viewer)

Eastern Yellow Robin: Critique would be appreciated

I'm new to digital photography and until now have done little more than snapshot photos. I've just moved to the east coast of Australia and bought a Panasonic FZ-20 and am finding the bird life and the possibilities the camera opens fascinating.

This shot was taken in typical forest conditions here: fairly low light, about 10 metres away, very little time to aquire the subject and shoot. EXIF data is below.

Here's the cropped image in its original state and my attempt at improving it in PS. The rest of the image contains an extension of the branch in both directions and similar background.

I would appreciate any suggestions on how to improve the quality of the image, i.e. camera settings, cropping, post-processing...

Manufacturer: Panasonic
Camera: DMC-FZ20
Date: 11.12.2004 at 10:31:41
Aperture: f 3.7
ISO: 80
Shutter speed: 1/200 s
EV -0.66 EV
Program: P - Programmed auto
Metering mode: Spot metering
White balance: Automatic
Zoom: 72.0 mm Real
Resolution: 2560 x 1920 Pixel (Fine)
Picture density: 72 x 72 dpi
Compression: 4.0:1
Date Digitized: 11.12.2004 at 10:31:41
Exposure mode I: Auto bracket
White balance I: Auto white balance
Digital zoom ratio: 0.00x Zoom
35mm Focal length: 432 mm
Scene capture type: Standard
Contrast: Normal
Saturation: High
Sharpness: Normal
Image Quality: Fine
White Balance II: Auto
Focus Mode: Auto focus (AF)
Picture stabilisation: Mode 2
Exposure Mode II: Automatic

Thanks for taking a look,

Don

Very nice pictures.

thinking of buying this camera, and pictures like this say buy, buy, buy.keep posting you photos please
cheers
billy

Don

Basically under the conditions and your equipment you have taken a good shot. 80 ASA and 1/200 of sec poor light ? I wish I had poor light like that this morning in the UK 400 ASA to get 1/200 of Sec @ f4. The problem with wildlife photography is that you can't alway pick your background.

I've had a little play in PS and see if this is the effect you were after.

I found the bright area at the bottom very distracting to the eye plus the bright light aggravated the lens CA or sensor bloom. (Red/blue outline).

So step 1 was to crop some of this area out.

I next used the burn tool - set highlight 5% with a large brush.

I used this on the background area - especially on the defocused whites to tone down the background enough to make the robin the centre of attention.

Plus a bit of unmask sharpening to give the image a bit of edge.

Basically bright backgrounds only work if they are a complement to the main subject. Otherwise it is best to use PS to darken and or blur backgounds that pull the eye away from the main subject.

As you seem to be taking a more critical veiw of your shots. Try shots at different focal lenghts and f stop settings and see if certain settings give a marked improvement in image quaility. Learn the lens sweet spot. Most mid price zoom lens become soft focus at the far end of zoom and show some improvement when f stopped down. It's only the top Dollar lens that hold their image quality wide open and thats what you pay for.


Robert

PS - Now if you are like me and aspire to get pin sharp shots like Nigel Blake I am affraid we both need deeper pockets for better kit.

Quite a good effort really. The FZ20 is very handy for this type of shot.

I have the FZ20 as well and it can produce some superb photos. I do find though that in anything less than sunny conditions, results can be a bit drab, though at full zoom if you use the built in flash which is quite powerful the results really perk up. The birds don't seem to mind it too much either.

I like the pose on this shot and composition on is about spot on though I'd have cropped a little tighter to hold the eye on the bird better as I find my eyes are drawn to the branch at the bottom of the photo which is a little more in focus. Also I'd have moved it slightly more to the right in the frame.

One thing I found with the FZ20 is the auto focus isn't spot on in dull conditions or at least can take it's time to work and isn't perfectly in the centre either, so I tend to swap to manual focus nowadays which is dead easy and stop down the aperture to around f5,6 for better results at longer zoom lengths. On obliging subjects 1/60 is quite enough and with the Image Stabliliser being very effective it's more than enough to counter the long zoom length.

I had a tinker with the photo as well.

I used the C1s photo - adjusted the gamma slightly, brightened the image, used unsharp mask and then ran it through NeatImage - which is a free download from www.neatimage.com - a very useful program for digital photography.

One other thing is that if a shot is a little soft looking, simply down sizing it a little can give an apparent sharpening.