Some more…
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A small improvement suggestion?
The pictures are very well executed technically, but they lack a little “spice” to them, maybe more agressive compositions, more “messy” background… you are at the point where your technical skill are a not an issue, now its time to work on your creative ones, both in-camera and post.
I think the best image you have here is the ones with the bee and that’s cause it forced you to have a “messier” background, there is a lot more depth to it than most of the other images.
Here’s a quick example with a slightly more agressive crop to one of your images
The subject is located at the upper left third and the branch is leading your eye towards that point. now its not perfect but its just to get the point across. of course this is tottally IMO but i figured i’d show rather just talk
Thanks for the critique I agree that Green Herron shot could be better…I’m 68 and I just started wildlife/ bird photography a couple of years ago…I hadn’t taken photographs since I had an old Canon AE1 film camera from the mid 80’s… My daughter is an avid bird watcher volunteer so I bought her a Canon R7 and a RF 100-400 lens plus a 1.4X Tele-converter…I was looking at her photos and being a birder myself I bought a Canon R5 and a RF 200-800 lens last spring… I bought DXO-Photolab 8 Elite, Luminar Neo, and Helicon Focus and I’m learning how to edit photos…
I’m not very good with masking so I basically just do the basic editing steps…
A lot of my shots are spur of the moment photographs. Bird watching and bird photography is not always somthing you can spend a lot of time with composition…Often it’s hurry up get the shot or go home without it…Particularly with Birds in flight…
That Green Harron shot was quite far away and I didn’t want to over crop because I was shooting into the sun…I have lots of RAW copies that I can improve as I get better at editing…
We are birders and getting picture of the different species is priority #1…As my daughter and I improve I’m confident out composition and editing skills will improve…
I love getting out in nature and capturing images of these beautiful creatures… That’s my greatest reward…
As far as Bokeh or " messy background " It takes extra effort to position myself to get the best background…Unfortunately the RF 200-800 has a F9 aperture at 800mm.
I sure would like a Canon 600mm F4 Prime for those guaranteed " messy backgrounds" but that’s a little out of my price range…
Scroll up to some of my previous photos…
The 3 photo sequence of a mating pair of Tree Swallows was purposely shot at 1/320 sec. to emphasize the motion blur in the males wings while the female is motionless… This is a few of my favorite shots that I’m happy with…
I love all the different species. We feed the local talent at our place right off or back deck, and I’m surprises at how many different species come for a meal ad a bath!
We have special macro lenses for photographing bugs ,bees butterflies and such but it’s really disheartening to see how few honeybees there are on the flowers these days…Some birds are being threatened too…
Pesticides, Herbicides and other chemicals are changing nature for the worst it seem…
I remember watching the many bees on clover on my parents lawn…I look hard for them on lawns with clover and there’s hardly any bees at all…
I planted a large pollinators garden over the last 2 years and I’m starting to get more butterflies and different bees…Nothing like the old days though…When the pollinators are gone some of our food sources goes with them…
What i mean by “messy” background is not the bokeh, like i said im not talking technical, im talking creative. Think rule of thirds - position of the subject in the frame (even if you crop in post), using elements in the background to draw attention to the subject. if you have a hard time “seeing in third”, you can turn it on in your camera’s display and in post when cropping.
Im a mostly a portrait photographer so its a bit harder to do a one-to-one but here is an example.
Here is a screenshot when using the crop tool, look at where the lines intersect, and where your eye naturally is drawn to.
It takes time and a lot of practice and you’ll have a very tough time with “uncooperative subjects”, but once you start nailing that you’ll see a noticeable improvement.