Nigel Morton
New member
This lion was captured at Blackpool Zoo. Any comments are welcome.
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My What Big Teeth You Have.
- Thread starter Nigel Morton
- Start date
Mike Spinak
pro member
Nigel,
I am essentially copying what I posted to your thread about tigers, because much of the same applies to all of your posts, today.
People who post pictures on this forum are strongly urged to give as much detail as possible about the camera settings used, the equipment used, and the reasons for the photographic decisions which were made. This allows for much greater potential, both to inform readers about options and techniques, and for readers to offer substantial criticism. Please do feel welcome to add this information, and please keep this in mind, for future posts. Also, it would help if you could give us some direction of what kind of comments you are looking for.
Having now looked at several of your pictures of squirrels, tigers, and lions, I'd suggest a few things:
1) Be more conscious and purposeful in your framing decisions.
2) Be more careful and purposeful about where you focus, and why.
3) Learn about color balance.
Your pictures also leave room for discussion about inspiration, purpose, and communication. However, we can get to that, later. I'm choosing to address the technical issues, first. (Ultimately, they are inextricably intertwined, but... a little at a time.)
Mike
I am essentially copying what I posted to your thread about tigers, because much of the same applies to all of your posts, today.
People who post pictures on this forum are strongly urged to give as much detail as possible about the camera settings used, the equipment used, and the reasons for the photographic decisions which were made. This allows for much greater potential, both to inform readers about options and techniques, and for readers to offer substantial criticism. Please do feel welcome to add this information, and please keep this in mind, for future posts. Also, it would help if you could give us some direction of what kind of comments you are looking for.
Having now looked at several of your pictures of squirrels, tigers, and lions, I'd suggest a few things:
1) Be more conscious and purposeful in your framing decisions.
2) Be more careful and purposeful about where you focus, and why.
3) Learn about color balance.
Your pictures also leave room for discussion about inspiration, purpose, and communication. However, we can get to that, later. I'm choosing to address the technical issues, first. (Ultimately, they are inextricably intertwined, but... a little at a time.)
Mike
Joel Slack
New member
If I saw that first one in the context of a Hollywood movie, I'd say that it was the fakest thing I'd ever seen! It's amazing that it's real, because it looks so strange. (not in a bad way)
John Sheehy
New member
The extreme saturation is more of an issue to me than the actual color balance. It makes the animals look less real to me.
John Sheehy
New member
Are these shot through plexiglass? Plexiglass is optically difficult, it puts variation in focus, makes AF less reliable, and distorts the image when you are close to it. When I shoot the tigers in the Bronx Zoo, I stand back as far as I can from the plexiglass, and the images are far less distorted (I also manually focus).
Anita Saunders
New member
On most of the photos there are patches which are faded and out of focus, which are the main reason these photos aren't up to grade. The one shot which is sharpest (the first with the teeth on show) unfortunately give away the zoo environment which does not make the picture appealing to me. The zoo environment is not a good one for the animal (unless it is a protective sanctuary, but that it is an irrelevant political issue here). However, if an animal were obviously in captivity in a photo I think it could be emphasised or used for some message to the viewer, rather than accidentally being there in the background.
Just my initial thoughts; I hope they are taken constructively. Please post more pictures to show us how your progress is going. All the best.
Just my initial thoughts; I hope they are taken constructively. Please post more pictures to show us how your progress is going. All the best.
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
This lion was captured at Blackpool Zoo. Any comments are welcome.
I have several questions:
Was this the whole picture framed? If cropped, let's see the whole image. It's counter-intuitive to think that many of us would frame with only part of the head, unless the compositon was compellilng. Here, however, I have problems with seeing the composition and feel there might be another picture you have held back.
Are you shooting through wire mesh with a wide aperture?
I support what Mike spinak has said, even though his is "tough love"!
The whole point of OPF is to deliver the finest implemeentations of our visions. Yes we can have a lot of fun and relaxation. It's great to know about the latest techno raz-ma-taz.
However, making and delivering images is the keystone of OPF's raison d'etre.
So it's not good enough for people to say, "Good job, I like your lion!"
We want you and everyone else to produce better images.
Fortunately you have posted in a forum where the quality of the whole arc of creative intent is held to account.
So you are faced with criticism which may seem harsh. However it's for good intent and in a helpful spirit.
I'd start of and ask what are you trying to capture and how do you want to present it and what feelings and meaning do you want to evoke.
As a start, the animals here need to be well framed. If you cant make a decision yet for whatever reason, then bring the scene home with you by shooting wide. (Later on, you can shoot framing exactly as you want to print your vison). For now by shooting wide, you can in luxury crop with composition in mind. Some people understand composition intuitively others need to visit art museums or consult books on the subject.
However, if you have no idea right now of composition, then at least you must record the scene with enough room for working on the image later when you have the skills to implement a picture.
OK, so we have a wider frame (everyone else, sorry for the heinous point ov view) and then increase your dept of field by using a smaller aperture. There's no place for fancy depth of field tricks when one has no composition or detail where one wants it. It's easy today to crop a well-exposed generously-framed subject and to blur or darken areas to choice.
However, poorly composed tight croops out of focus are too difficult to work with to deliver anything that one wants to revisit. If no one WANTS to look up your image again and revisit to experience feeling and be stimulated, then the picture is likely notgood enough yet.
I'd suggest returning to the zoo and taking more pictures set at f8- f11 with a 28mm -35mm lens and then we can deal with just one thing, compositon.
Kindest wishes,
Asher
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Nigel Morton
New member
Many thanks to you all for taking the time to look at these and to pass on your critisism and advice. I will take all of your comments on board and hopefully improve from this.
I will have to find out the full details of these shots, but they were all taken with an EOS 350D and sigma 70-300mm lense. I was taking the shots from behind a Mesh fence on a dullish day.
I attempted to bring back some of the colour to these shots but I see that I have overdone this.
Againg thank you all for your frank advice. Without this sort of help I would make the same mistakes again. I can now aim to improve.
I will have to find out the full details of these shots, but they were all taken with an EOS 350D and sigma 70-300mm lense. I was taking the shots from behind a Mesh fence on a dullish day.
I attempted to bring back some of the colour to these shots but I see that I have overdone this.
Againg thank you all for your frank advice. Without this sort of help I would make the same mistakes again. I can now aim to improve.
Regarding focal length and aperture choices:
First, I agree that shooting a bit wider will afford wider composition choices in post-processing, and I often do this quite intentionally as well, especially for bird and other moving subjects. It's not quite as necessary with still subjects (such as a reposing lion), but it still doesn't hurt to take a variety of shots, both tight and wide, also horizontal and vertical orientation, to give you more options later on.
Regarding aperture, I think a wider aperture is often helpful in nature type photography, and especially in zoo shots. Typically there are distracting elements, both in foreground and background, and a wider aperture will help to blur these areas out (especially mesh screens, fences, artificial elements, etc.). You then have to be careful about focus, making sure the eye or eyes are very sharp, and that you've chosen a sufficiently fast shutter speed to avoid motion blur. You may or may not want the entire animal, or even head, in focus, and need to choose the appropriate aperture to achieve this.
Bottom line - there will likely be situations where you do want to stop down more to increase your depth of field, but in my experience anyway, there are probably somewhat more situations where you want to be more on the side of wider apertures for the reasons mentioned. The specifics of the situation and the intent in the photography will be the deciding factors.
Hope this helps!
John_Nevill
New member
Lots of interesting tips here, I shoot lots of zoo anmals through glass and chain fences. I find the the trick with glass is to find a clean bit (clean it yourself, always carry a cloth), get as close as you can, use a rubber lens hood to help seal and remove glare and shoot at wide apertures (<f5.6).
When post processing (CS) through glass shots, aim to get the contrast back (using levels or black point) and remove any colour cast which the glass may yeild.
Images shot through glass will always be soft, so try a small amount of USM to help improve sharpness. One trick to raise contrast is to use USM as a haze remover with settings of 20%, radius 60 and threshold 4. This really helps.
Now fences are a complete nightmare, always try and get the main subject matter inside the fence openings, the low contrast and desat apparent when a fence is bokeh'd in front of the subject is very difficult to remove. In CS, I use a large dia burn tool (set on highlight at ~15%) and draw over the fence areas in broad strokes.
Hope this helps.
When post processing (CS) through glass shots, aim to get the contrast back (using levels or black point) and remove any colour cast which the glass may yeild.
Images shot through glass will always be soft, so try a small amount of USM to help improve sharpness. One trick to raise contrast is to use USM as a haze remover with settings of 20%, radius 60 and threshold 4. This really helps.
Now fences are a complete nightmare, always try and get the main subject matter inside the fence openings, the low contrast and desat apparent when a fence is bokeh'd in front of the subject is very difficult to remove. In CS, I use a large dia burn tool (set on highlight at ~15%) and draw over the fence areas in broad strokes.
Hope this helps.
Nigel Morton
New member
Many thanks for the advice John and Don. This will be very useful for me.
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Nigel,
While Don's advice is perfect, I'd still concentrate on wide totally focused shots.
Why?
Because you need, IMHO, to sit with one image at a time and consider how composition, including and excluding might work.
It may be that most of your images cannot be rescued by cropping and selectively blurring or altering the brightness or contrast.
That's fine. Just walk around an art museum, or go to the library or a Nature website and get some experience of how one others have tackled composition.
Now return to the zoo and start again.
Tight cropping is fine when you are Don, Sean, John or Mike Spinak. These guys have hundereds of hours of work framing in their creative bank account.
Composition can seem tough to learn, however, I'm sure you will do it.
If you come home with just one picture you can work with, you can pat yourself on the back.
Asher
P.S. Ansel Adams worked much harder than almost anyone.
While Don's advice is perfect, I'd still concentrate on wide totally focused shots.
Why?
Because you need, IMHO, to sit with one image at a time and consider how composition, including and excluding might work.
It may be that most of your images cannot be rescued by cropping and selectively blurring or altering the brightness or contrast.
That's fine. Just walk around an art museum, or go to the library or a Nature website and get some experience of how one others have tackled composition.
Now return to the zoo and start again.
Tight cropping is fine when you are Don, Sean, John or Mike Spinak. These guys have hundereds of hours of work framing in their creative bank account.
Composition can seem tough to learn, however, I'm sure you will do it.
If you come home with just one picture you can work with, you can pat yourself on the back.
Asher
P.S. Ansel Adams worked much harder than almost anyone.
John Sheehy
New member
If you must shoot through a fence, things you can do to improve the image are to get as close as possible to the fence, shoot so the subject is in the center of the hole in the fence, use a wide aperture so the fence is not focused well enough to obscure the background (which you probably have to do anyway, on an overcast day), and choose a spot in the fence that is darkest, in color and/or has the least light falling on it. Bands of darkness are much simpler to fix in software than bands of light, which require subtracting specific colors.
Nigel Morton
New member
Many thanks to you all. All of the advice and criticism is very much appreciated. I will endeavour to take all of this onboard in an attempt to improve. I hope you will all continue with your valued advice, with any other posts I make which will hopefully improve over time.
Nige
Nige