Trogon Photo Tours

May 2015 - This month's photography article discusses changing your background by changing your position slightly.  It includes mostly images from Peru earlier this year. 

Peruvian Thick-knees photographed January 2015, Pantanos de Villa, Peru.  Canon 5D3, 500F4 1.4x 1/1000 F11, iso 800, Av mode, 0 exposure compensation, handheld.  While visiting Pantanos de Villa near Lima we found this pair of Thick-knees along a gravel road right near a housing development.  To our surprise they were quite tolerant of us.  After we got out of the car, the first thing I did which is kind of second nature for me was to get low so as to get a better angle and also not to scare the birds by standing upright.  I did a nice job stopping down to get both birds in focus here but I quickly realized that the background wasn't ideal with their heads intersecting with the bands in the background and the bright areas above their heads. I did manage to get a few nice shots of both birds before one moved off to the right a bit.

Peruvian Thick-knee - Pantanos de Villa, Peru.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1.4x 1/5000 F6.3, iso 800, Av mode, exposure compensation at 0.  With just one bird left I dropped my depth of field back down to F6.3 so as to have a less busy background and I positioned myself a little bit higher so I would just have the gravel road in the background rather than the bright areas of the housing development.  Note that all I did was go from a lying down position to being on my knees to accomplish this, it's a good illustration of when working with a long lens changing your position just slightly can result in a vastly different result.  I quite like this image as the dirt road looks like it could be a dry river bed which would be a typical habitat for this species.  I also like that the rocks and grass around the feet are somewhat in focus here.  I would consider cloning or toning down the bright spot on the left but I wanted to leave the image as shot to show you the real background I ended up with.  This image was underexposed a bit as I was in aperture priority and the bright background fooled the meter.  Thick-knees are crepuscular, most active at dawn and dusk, which is probably part of the reason for the large eyes that they have. 

Peruvian Thick-knee - Pantanos de Villa, Peru.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1.4x 1/2500 F6.3, iso 800, Av mode, evaluative metering at 0.  After taking some more images I decided to get back down low and carefully lined up the bird against an area that would be almost all dark green. In doing so I moved over a few feet.  I like the green background here and the low angle but I'm not very fond of the out of focus foreground in this case.  I could crop it out but then it would be too tight on the "virtual" feet.  So my favorite of the 3 images here is the second one, I just really like the setting.  So this is one case where the lower angle didn't result in a better shot in my opinion.  But opinions and tastes will vary and by moving just a bit I was able to turn the opportunity into a situation where I have multiple images that are quite different of this species that I can send to my stock agents. 

American Oystercatchers - photographed January 2015 at Pantanos de Villa, Peru.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1.4x 1/1600 F11, Av mode, evaluative compensation at 0, handheld.  There were quite a few American Oystercatchers on the beach at Pantanos de Villa and they made great subjects either with their chicks or courting.   For this shot I had gone down a slope from the beach that they were on to try and get eye level with them, however at this point I was still standing up and shooting down on the birds.  The result is a very average, uninspiring photo as the birds really blend into the beach background.  This is also partially due to the large depth of field which was needed to get both birds in focus. 

American Oystercatchers - Pantanos de Villa, Peru.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1.4x 1/2000 F10, iso 800, Av mode, evaluative metering at 0.  This shot was taken just a short time later and the main difference in perspective is that I crouched down to get more at their level.  This is obviously quite a bit better shot and the majority of the time getting a lower angle will result in a better background because the background itself is farther away.  Again, I could do a bit of beach clean up cloning in photoshop if I was so inclined but wanted to show the image as it was shot (other than cropping, sharpening and the usual optimization).  

Peregrine Falcon - photographed March 2012 at Damon Point State Park, WA.  Canon 7D, 500F4 1.4x 1/320 F8, iso 400, Av mode, evaluative metering +0.3, handheld, full frame.  A departure from Peru for the moment, this shot and the next one of a Peregrine Falcon perched up at Ocean Shores, WA is my favorite example of how changing your position just slightly can change the image a great deal.  At this point I was standing after having crawled up to the bird and taken a lot of different images. 

Peregrine Falcon - Here is the same bird just moments later and all I did was squatted down a bit, my feet didn't change position at all.  By doing so I was able to get the bay water in the background rather than the beach.  I like this image better than the one with the mudflat background.  But I would add that they are both good images and again just by changing position very slightly I was able to turn 1 image into 2 that could be used. 

Llama - photographed February 2015 at Machu Picchu.  Canon 5D3 28-135mm at 28mm, 1/250 F11, handheld.  During our trip to Peru recently besides photographing the ruins I determined to photograph whatever wildlife was up there as well.  These llamas were pretty tame but it took me quite a while to line one up where I wanted it in the frame with the ruins in the background. 

In conclusion pay attention to your background.  As a general rule getting lower will result in a better background but not every time.  By changing your position just slightly with a long lens you can change the image a great deal and get multiple usable images out of the same subject.