Bird portraits - C&C most welcome

[davidedric]

From recent trip to Florida. Ho do you think "head and shoulders" pictures work, and any other C&C

Thanks for viewing.

Little egret:




Great egret




Little blue heron




(backlit) anhinga

[Ludwig]

Your bird portraits work just fine. I would quibble only with the egret photo. The others leave nice "breathing space" in front and on top of the bird. The egret is a bit too much centered, a tighter crop (cut some on right and bottom) would help this portrait. The backlit anhinga would benefit by having the shadows lightened a little to bring out more detail. This is nice work. Congratulations for getting this close for such nice, sharp photos!

[fandy]

Nice job. I like them well enough. If you want some insperation look at the avian gallery over at http://www.naturephotographers.net/enter.html

[Geoff F]

Bird portraits can work well. Basically, just follow the same rules of people portraits.

In these photos, I would crop the egret slightly tighter on the right to give a better balance.

And just a little tighter for the Anhinga (looks like a cormorant to me) to reduce the background distraction.

But the actual photography is very good.

[davidedric]

Thanks for the feedback, guys. You are dead right about the egret crop (certainly from the right) and apologies for calling it a little egret which is its old world name - snowy egret in the US.

Geoff - definitely an anhinga, straight bill is diagnostic

[jprzybyla]

Hello David, I like all of them. Good work handling the white exposure, spot on. The Great Egret shows the green eye shadow that they only have during breeding season. You are right about the anhinga's bill as opposed to the curved hooked bill of the comorant. I look forward to more from your Florida holiday.

[Aforns]

Hi Dave The main thing I see is the light, for birds you do need soft light. Early morning, late afternoon or overcast during the day.

For the snowy egret the angle is a bit steep, they tend to look better at eye level or close to it. The crop is add and the bird place in the middle of the frame. You did get a good exposure with a good light angle and sharp

White egret is very cool particularly in full breeding plumage, great lores. Would prefer the bird pointing slightly to the camera, looks more appealing and will have the tip of the beak and eye at the same plane so all will be in focus. Particularly effective when you shoot wide open. Would also have moved a bit to keep the white branch from going through its head.

Anhinga looks lovely with a great pose and bg, do like backlit images. For those you do need some flash fill otherwise the feathers will look dark. Trying to open up will increase noise in a big way. Adding light will not work since the bg will be blown and this does not work as in a high key image.

Excellent work and keep posting birds !!

[jamn4ex]

I especially like the pose in 1 and 4 . all very well taken.