Mute Swans

[Nicks Pics]

I had to under expose these to keep at least some of the whites in check, because of the bright daylight, and having the narrow dynamic range of a bridge camera, so they're a bit noisy. I took measures to reduce the noise, but more seemed to appear after jpeg compression.

1

2The swans were feeding on seaweed from the pond floor. That's what's happening here.


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I was on a low dock and the swans were pretty close so I tried to get down to more eye level to the swans.
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Any comments/critiques welcome! I'll also accept bird babbling if you can't think of anything else to say

[IzzieK]

These are beautiful shots, Nick! I love #2 in particular for the water in its beak though I like the pose of #3 with the drip of water at the tip of it's beak. Your shots are little bit soft, don't you think? Nice composition on all of them.

[Nicks Pics]

Thanks Izzie, Position on #2 was a little odd, but maybe it's a little unique. I agree they are soft, RAW files from this camera can be extremely noisy, I did a lot of both sharpening and NR, I felt I was introducing artificial grain to sharpen much, but I do think I'll need to try again to get them a little sharper anyways if I print them or anything. I'm thinking these are just not going to be real winners from the start.

[IzzieK]

Thanks Izzie, Position on #2 was a little odd, but maybe it's a little unique. I agree they are soft, RAW files from this camera can be extremely noisy, I did a lot of both sharpening and NR, I felt I was introducing artificial grain to sharpen much, but I do think I'll need to try again to get them a little sharper anyways if I print them or anything. I'm thinking these are just not going to be real winners from the start.

Have you tried sharpening in lab channel?
http://photo.net/learn/digital-photo...-in-lab-color/

[Nicks Pics]

Thanks for the tip, but I actually am not using Photo Shop, I just used Lightroom for that, but maybe I should get a Photo Shop type program and I'm hoping it will have some better ways to sharpen, or a LAB channel or similar. I gave it another try in LR anyway.

[Cantab]

I especially like #2. Being close to water level really helps. I took some mute swan photos a few days but was not down at water level.

[Nicks Pics]

Thanks Bruce, I'd seen some cool low POV bird shots so I gave it a try. I think a low POV makes photos more interesting because one of the things I think people like best about viewing pictures (speaking of content of the photo, rather than rendition) is the thrill of getting a view one doesn't normally see, and in this case it helps give a perspective of another swan, rather than that of a person standing on the dock looking at