Trogon Photo Tours

June 2015 - This month's newsletter is a review of both depth of field and composition for bird photography.  It will be the first of 2 such articles.  It features images from a private tour that we led to Peru earlier this year.

Red-legged Cormorant - photographed February 2015 in Pucusana, Peru.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1/3200 F5.6, iso 800, handheld from boat.  This species is the most beautiful cormorant I have had the pleasure to photograph.  The Lima area has some great sea bird photography with Inca Terns, Red-legged and Guanay Cormorants, Peruvian Boobies and Pelicans, Humboldt Penguins and other species which live in the area.   They are attracted to the large numbers of fish caused by the Humboldt Current upwelling in the area.  My default setting for depth of field for bird photography is 2/3 of one stop to one stop down from wide open.  In this example F4 is wide open for this lens, F5.6 is one stop down from wide open.  There are a few reasons why this is my default.  The biggest reason is that it is the best compromise between getting all of the bird sharp and at the same time having a background that isn't too distracting.  In this image for example the bird is quite sharp from head to wings to tip of the tail.  I should note that this is almost full frame with just a little bit cropped.  If I shoot this wide open at F4 I'm not going to get the whole bird sharp specially with the tail facing toward.   On the other hand if I go down 2 stops to F8 then the background cliff face which is already slightly distracting is going to be more in focus and be even more distracting. As far as the composition in this image the bird is fairly centered but I think it works reasonably well with the bird large in the frame and it's wings spread out in each direction. 

Purple-collared Woodstar - photographed January 2015 at Lomas de Lachay, Peru.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1.4x 1/500 F7.1, iso 800, handheld.  This spectacular little hummingbird is the one of the few that has a brilliant sky blue gorget.  In this shot I was 2/3 of a stop down from wide open which turned out to be a good compromise.  With the 1.4x teleconverter F5.6 is wide open.  This is cropped a little bit more than 50% from the original image.  The bird is pretty sharp from beak to head down to the feet, the tail is out of focus but because it's on the backside (it's not facing us) that doesn't bother me.  If I had shot it wide open less of the bird would have been in focus.  So I accomplished the first goal of having most of the bird in focus except the part facing away from me.  Then my second goal is to have a fairly clean, non distracting background.  The out of focus branches in front and behind the bird are again slightly distracting but not a big problem.  If I had stopped down to F11 (2 stops down from wide open) it would have created 2 problems, first the branches especially the out of focus ones in front would have been more distracting and secondly I would have lost a lot of valuable shutter speed because I was handholding.  Another option would have been to increase my iso but if possible I like to keep it at 800 or below, especially since I knew I was going to have to crop this image a fair bit. 

In terms of composition when I cropped I placed the bird's head at the "rule of thirds" spot in the upper left hand corner.  If you draw 2 lines vertically and 2 lines horizontally at equal distances through the photo it creates 4 "rule of thirds" spots (axes) towards each corner of the image.  Generally placing the subject at one of the rule of thirds axes creates a pleasing composition.  However you also usually want to have the bird with more space in the direction it is facing.  So if I placed it in either the top right or bottom right axis the composition wouldn't work.  The other option would have been lower left but if I placed the bird's head at that spot the tail would have been either cut off or right on the edge of the bottom of the frame.  That leaves the top left as by far the best axis to place the bird at and it works out well in this composition. 

Great Grebe, juvenile -  photographed February 2015 at Pantanas de Villa, Peru.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1.4x 1/1250 F8, iso 800, handheld.  I cropped this image very slightly.  Again this is 1 stop down from wide open and I managed to get the whole bird quite sharp.  In this situation I could have gone to F11 as there is nothing distracting in the image but it wouldn't have added anything to the shot and I would have lost valuable shutter speed as the bird was moving and I was handholding. Another reason I like to stop down about 1 stop is that most lenses are sharpest when stopped down 1 to 2 stops. 

This is a good image to talk about composition.  With the bird fairly large in the frame like this it generally doesn't work well to use the rule of thirds guideline for composition.  This is because if the bird's head was on one of the right axises part of the body would be cropped out of the frame, with the same result if you put the head on bottom left.  So that leaves the top left as the only spot for a possible "rule of thirds" composition.  That might work fairly well in this particular image because the wake left by the bird swimming to some extent balances the bird being farther left in the frame.  But the classic composition is more like I show here with the bird having more room to move into the frame as opposed to swimming out of the frame.  Another point with this shot is with reflection shots it's nice to have an equal amount of space above the bird and below the reflection to give the image a feel of symmetry. 

Oasis Hummingbird - photographed January 2015 at Lomas de Lachay, Peru.  Canon 5D3  500F4 1.4x 1/1000 F7.1, iso 1600, evaluative metering +2.3, cropped from vertical to horizontal.  We photographed this range restricted endemic on the Peru trip.  This is an example where my default settings didn't work out as well as I had hoped.  The outer portion of the beak and the elongated tail are both out of focus.  Normally the tail being out of focus wouldn't bother me much but I think it stands out here for 2 reasons, 1 is that it's a long spectacular tail and secondly because it's a high key image.  All we see in the background is white so any imperfection is magnified in some respects.  Some photographers like these high key type shots while others loathe them.  I do like the composition as I cropped it here with the head being at the upper left rule of thirds spot.  

Peruvian Pygmy Owl photographed February 2015 in the Santa Eulalia Valley, Peru.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1.4x 1/1000 F6.3, iso 1600, 580ex fill flash at -1.0,  handheld, cropped to vertical.  Here is an example where I used less depth of field than normal shooting this close to wide open.  There were a couple of reasons for this. First I had taken some shots with my new 7D Mark II which were not sharp, so I changed to my 5D3 and was desperate to get a sharp image before the bird flew off.  So I wanted to keep my shutter speed up, at the same time I didn't want to go over iso 1600, it was early morning and the light was still low.  In this case it worked out pretty well as the head and body of the bird are both sharp.  In terms of composition this was a tougher shot to compose because of the out of focus branch on the left.  The out of focus branch on the left is a signficant distraction, if I had cropped to the right of that branch the bird would be too close to the left edge and the composition would be unbalanced. My composition results in the bird being quite centered in the frame.  However I still think it works pretty well partially because the bird is looking straight at us.  With verticals like this I like to place the bird's head fairly high in the frame.  Of course another option here would have been a fairly extensive cloning job to remove the branch on the left. 

Andean Motmot photographed February 2015, Aguas Calientes, Peru.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1/125 F4.5, iso 3200, 580ex fill flash at -1.3, handheld.  We found this Motmot early in the morning while birding along the river in Aguas Calientes, the town nearest to Machu Picchu.  This was a case of there just being very little available light to work with so I was forced to shoot this shot close to wide open.  Note that I still stopped down 1/3 of a stop because the bird was fairly close to me and lenses are sharper if they are stopped down just a touch rather than wide open.  This is cropped just a touch from the left and from the top.  An option if I wanted use more depth of field here would have been to use more flash and less ambient light but the result would have looked overflashed and more like a night shot.  Compositionally I think it's a good image with more room on the right in the direction the bird is looking and the bird's head fairly high in the frame. 

Andean Cock-of-the-Rock photographed June 2012 at Paz de las Aves, Ecuador.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1/100 F4, iso 1600, Gitzo tripod, Wimberley head.  Here's a departure from Peru and back to Ecuador.  This shot ticks all of the boxes for why you might want to use less depth of field or shoot wide open.  First the light was very low and I was only getting 1/100 shooting wide open, secondly the bird wasn't really close, it's a good sized bird and this image is cropped to about 50% of the original frame and lastly the background is busy so by shooting wide open you are cutting down distractions. Compostionally it's a good image with the bird's head fairly close to the 1/3 mark in the upper left.  In actuality it's a little bit right of that spot but if it was further left then the tail would be too close to the edge of the frame and the composition would be unbalanced with too much empty space on the right. 

In conclusion I like to shoot about 1 stop down from wide open because I find it's a good compromise between getting the whole bird sharp and keeping the background distractions minimal.  Also most lenses are sharpest stopped down 1 to 2 stops.  Instances when it makes sense to use less depth of field are when the light is low (you are trying to keep your iso down), the background is busy or the bird is not very close.  In next month's newsletter we will look at some instances when it makes sense to use more depth of field.

As for composition keep in mind the "rule of thirds", generally try to give the bird more space in the direction it is looking and with verticals place the bird's head fairly high in the frame.  Always take into account the other elements in the image besides the bird to help present a balanced composition.