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Snipe Photo - please critique.... (1 Viewer)

S

Scrums

Active member
Hi there...

This was taken at Leighton Moss RSPB (Lower Hide) yesterday. The weather was very stormy, with bright patches.

We had actually decided to wait for the shower to pass - when the Snipe crept up on us !

It got to within about 25/30 feet from the hide window.

Camera: EOS 300d with 170-500 Sigma zoom @ 500mm
Settings: Manual, speed: 1/4000, f5.6, image quality - fine. Iso: 400

The photo has been cropped and has had some basic adjustments made in Microsoft Photo Editor.

Basically, I'm not over impressed with the photo - this is the best of 15 or so that I took. Am I asking too much, can anyone with more experience point to some obvious flaws in focussing etc and make suggestions ?

Looking forward to your critiques ( I think ! )

Regards

Chris.

PS: View original (...not for the fainthearted or dial-up users) at: www.Original-idea.co.uk/Snipe.htm
 

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Scrums said:
Camera: EOS 300d with 170-500 Sigma zoom @ 500mm
Settings: Manual, speed: 1/4000, f5.6, image quality - fine. Iso: 400

The photo has been cropped and has had some basic adjustments made in Microsoft Photo Editor.

Basically, I'm not over impressed with the photo - this is the best of 15 or so that I took. Am I asking too much, can anyone with more experience point to some obvious flaws in focussing etc and make suggestions ?

Looking forward to your critiques ( I think ! )
Looks ok to me. Needs some colour correction. I'm surprised at the amount of noise at 400 ISO with the 300D.
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I myself am having the same sort of problems with shots lacking punch, I would say the eye and beak are off focus (the wet stick looks sharper).
 
Hi Chris,
I've found that it pays to stop the lens down to f11-f16 when using the Sigma at 500mm focal length - the extra depth of field at such a long focal length will help if the focus is not absolutely spot on, and at 400ISO you'd still have a shutter speed of 1/1000 sec. I also shoot everything on a tripod with cable release just to make sure - even the pressure of a finger on the shutter button can cause camera shake and at that magnification even the tiniest movement is evident in the end result.
 
Hi Chris,

It's a good picture, but I can see why you might be expecting a bit better from a DSLR set-up.

I'm no sort of an expert, but it looks to me like the exposure is about right, but that the picture lacks sharpness.

Pretty much everything looks soft, so I would suspect camera shake, but a shutter speed of 1/4000th sec should freeze everything I would have thought. It is true that the best point of focus appears to be a little in front of the bird, so maybe that's a bit off. General thought is to focus on the eye of a live subject - this apparently gives the best overall impression, even if a narrow depth of field means that other parts of the bird are slightly out of focus.

I wondered why you had chosen ASA 400 - there appears to have been plenty of light, and this will certainly lead to a lack of sharpness. Try ASA 100, assuming that you can get away with it.

Also the pose and composition are not great, but not so much you can do about that other than get lucky!!


Good luck.... Ruby
 
Agree with most of the comments above.

The eye is not in a very good position for even a more sophisticated camera with lots of focus points to pick up on so manual focus would be the best option here.

Stopping the lens down too much may bring more of the background and foreground into focus which will not make the bird stand out - in fact it's doing what Snipes are supposed to do by blending in with it's surroundings! However, the maximum aperture on the longest end of this type of zoom lens is not going to be it's sharpest setting, so you'll need to stop it down a stop or two for the best results.

Using the Unsharp Mask to try to sharpen-up the bird will probably show up the noise even more so using Levels to exaggerate the contrast may make it look a bit sharper - but don't blow-out the highlights which are showing some subtle detail on the bird.
 
Scrums said:
Hi there...


PS: View original (...not for the fainthearted or dial-up users) at: www.Original-idea.co.uk/Snipe.htm
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Hi - it's hard, isn't it, taking bird photos...

The photo is pretty darn good, really, but... the focus is not truly on the eye of the bird; the depth of field is small; there might be a tiny amount of camera shake; and the exposure is a bit out.

To try to improve matters: switch to spot focus or use manual; use spot exposure; use as fast a shutter speed as lighting allows but... keep aperture of around f8-11.

Often impossible, of course, to carry out all of these!
 
Many thanks for all your replies,

The photo was taken on a tripod via a cable release.

It seems getting more depth of field with a higher f stop could be a solution.

Final point for discussion: As a spectacles wearer, I do have a certain amount of problems 'getting into' the viewfinder. Presumably - if I took a photo without my glasses - the camera/lens would be doing the compensation for my eyes and the result would be out of focus for most people? Anyone got any ideas for 'zeroing in' /calibrating for personal use the dioptric adjuster - if indeed it makes any of difference.

Chris
 
Scrums said:
Many thanks for all your replies,

The photo was taken on a tripod via a cable release.

It seems getting more depth of field with a higher f stop could be a solution.

Final point for discussion: As a spectacles wearer, I do have a certain amount of problems 'getting into' the viewfinder. Presumably - if I took a photo without my glasses - the camera/lens would be doing the compensation for my eyes and the result would be out of focus for most people? Anyone got any ideas for 'zeroing in' /calibrating for personal use the dioptric adjuster - if indeed it makes any of difference.

Chris
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If what you see is sharp - specs or not - it's sharp, so wearing specs won't matter at all.

I should think there was not even any tiny camera movement from what you say but a tripod / dable release gives no absolute promise of steadiness, though - depending on the shutter speed, wind blowing or even shutter slap can induce sufficient vibration in some cameras to cause minor blurring.
 
Hi Chris. Here’s my understanding. When you look through the viewfinder of your SLR, what you are really focussing on, with the help of the eyepiece lens, is the focussing screen inside the camera. This contains the 2D image as projected by the camera lens. By default, the eyepiece lens requires you to set your eye focus to what would be infinity (or at least a long way away) for someone of normal vision to get a sharp view of this image. This means someone who is short sighted, who can't do this, will require dioptre correction lenses to add to the eyepiece (or make an adjustment if correction is built in) if they wish to get an image in the viewfinder they can focus on. Other optical defects your eyes may have may require you to keep your glasses to get the best view. Obviously having less than the perfect view makes it harder for you to judge what areas are or aren’t sharp on the focussing screen, these areas being determined by the camera lens focus setting.
 
normjackson said:
Hi Chris. Here’s my understanding. When you look through the viewfinder of your SLR, what you are really focussing on, with the help of the eyepiece lens, is the focussing screen inside the camera. This contains the 2D image as projected by the camera lens. By default, the eyepiece lens requires you to set your eye focus to what would be infinity (or at least a long way away) for someone of normal vision to get a sharp view of this image. This means someone who is short sighted, who can't do this, will require dioptre correction lenses to add to the eyepiece (or make an adjustment if correction is built in) if they wish to get an image in the viewfinder they can focus on. Other optical defects your eyes may have may require you to keep your glasses to get the best view. Obviously having less than the perfect view makes it harder for you to judge what areas are or aren’t sharp on the focussing screen, these areas being determined by the camera lens focus setting.
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Well explained indeed. But sharp will always be sharp - that is, as you say, if your eyes can see "sharp".
 
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