Pick your favorite crop and C&C

The bird is a Cedar Waxwing. Photo was shot with a Canon 20D with 100-400L and a Kenco 1.5x "non-reporting" TC. I get auto focus with that combination which takes my focal length to 600mm. The focus is accurate, the IQ seems better than my Canon 1.4 TC. It hunts in low light, and AF is slow, but it works and I'm liking it.

I'm looking for critiques of these photos. Which crop do you like best? Also I'm trying to proof my monitor/calibration so I'd appreciate hearing if they look over/underexposed. And last, just good old C&C... Do they pop, etc. If you'd like to add your revision, I'd like to see what you can do with them. I'm interested in learning about how to do borders so if you feel like applying a border and reposting to demo, I'd like to see that as well. Thanks for looking

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Where's the images?

Never mind!!!

There were problems with posting photos when I started this thread. I figured out the issue with another forum user's help. The cache on my browser had to be cleared to get everything to show up. All the options that were supposed to be there weren't showing up.

Here's the third pic.

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Fixed the bug with the browser. All the photos are up now.

Personally I like the first shot the best (the landscape). I think the square and the portrait views make the shot look a little awkward where as the landscape give the bird a little "space" in front of his face...doesn't look like he's going to start pecking at the edge of the frame to get out! LOL! If I were going to do anything to this shot, I'd go with the landscape and maybe trim a little more off the right side and the top and bottom of the shot...push the bird just a bit further over to the right.

As far as the exposure and your calibration goes, I think it looks pretty good. It's almost a little hard to judge with these shots as the lighting looks just a little harsh to begin with, but over all I'd say your pretty close. There almost seems to be just a tich of red in the birds coloring (especially around the face/head) but again with this shot, it's hard to say if that's a calibration issue or if it was simply the birds natural coloring or even the lighting.

All and all I think it's a really nice shot. I might do a little extra selective sharpening around the eye, but other than that it's pretty decent.

Just my $.02 worth,
Jim

The exposure, bokeh and sharpness are so technically awesome that the compositions do not matter to me.

Where can I get one of those 1.5 TC's and how much?

Walczak Photo wrote in post #5782339
Personally I like the first shot the best (the landscape). I think the square and the portrait views make the shot look a little awkward where as the landscape give the bird a little "space" in front of his face...doesn't look like he's going to start pecking at the edge of the frame to get out! LOL! If I were going to do anything to this shot, I'd go with the landscape and maybe trim a little more off the right side and the top and bottom of the shot...push the bird just a bit further over to the right.

As far as the exposure and your calibration goes, I think it looks pretty good. It's almost a little hard to judge with these shots as the lighting looks just a little harsh to begin with, but over all I'd say your pretty close. There almost seems to be just a tich of red in the birds coloring (especially around the face/head) but again with this shot, it's hard to say if that's a calibration issue or if it was simply the birds natural coloring or even the lighting.

All and all I think it's a really nice shot. I might do a little extra selective sharpening around the eye, but other than that it's pretty decent.

Just my $.02 worth,
Jim

Thanks for the comments. The red is natural, though someone else pointed out on another thread that it seems to have a color cast in general. I'm tending to agree with them based on what the branches look like. I'm gonna reprocess it when I get a round tuit and see if I can perfect it. The color cast to me looks over yellow, but some say over green. I'll have to toy with it and see what I like. It was warm afternoon sun, which might tend to be overyellow (warm) in it's own right.

midnitejam wrote in post #5783279
The exposure, bokeh and sharpness are so technically awesome that the compositions do not matter to me.

Where can I get one of those 1.5 TC's and how much?

LOL, thanks for the compliments! I like the bokeh myself based on this photo. To be perfectly fair though, this was shot at ISO 800. The noise wasn't bad, but it has been processed to be very smooth with Neat Image. I didn't really change the overall quality, just took out the noise spotting. I outlined the bird and processed it at different Noise levels. I left a little more noise on it to save a little more detail.

Here's the TC I bought. It came from Adorama for $86.95 + S&H. http://www.adorama.com​/LN15XKEOS.html Do note the markings in the photo on their site. Don't settle for any old Kenco 1.5x TC. They may not give you what this one gives you in terms of AF beyond Canon's stated limits.

I saw another thread on here where a guy was using it with the 100-400L and getting autofocus. I can't say how many lenses it will work with that wouldn't normally get AF with a Canon xxD camera and a lens over 5.6, this is the only one I've tried. If you read the description on the web though, it says something about giving AF to lenses that have a min aperture of 4.5 (which seems to disregard the 5.6 end). The 100-400L fits that criteria, but if that's to be taken at face value the 400 5.6L (for example) may not.

I haven't begun testing it with other lenses yet, or stacked with my Canon 1.4x TC. That will all come in time as I use it more. I've had it about a week so far. I don't know if the AF speed or the low light hunting is better or worse than the Canon 1.4x TC yet either. I didn't buy it to replace the Canon TC really so I haven't come around to testing it yet. But you can bet I want to test this with all my lenses and stack it with a TC as well. One nice thing about it. With the 1.5x conversion factor my 200mm end becomes 300mm instead of 280mm on the 70-200 and by the time I use it on the 100-400mm I gain a full 40mm over the 1.4x.

Square appeared too centered and static. In my opinion, it was not a good fit for the subject. I much preferred landscape, though there may have been a bit too much negative space to the left - maybe something between square and the landscape shown.

fxk wrote in post #5797600
Square appeared too centered and static. In my opinion, it was not a good fit for the subject. I much preferred landscape, though there may have been a bit too much negative space to the left - maybe something between square and the landscape shown.

None of the crops set with me as being perfect. I kept looking for that perfect crop in a common frame size and haven't quite come up with it yet. My favorite is probably the portrait view though I keep wishing I could do something with the landscape view. It seems like I'm just close to having the ideal crop, but for some reason I can't quite pull it off. I'd like to see someone else's idea of the right crop if they could see how to make it just right. You're welcome to give it a go and repost it. Maybe I'll learn something to use for the next bird pic.

Flo wrote in post #5804495

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It is centered, but with this crop the bird fills up the frame?

AND most important to many--it also satisfies that demand to satisfy the ROT's when the eye is placed in the magical position.

Lol MJ.I made sure the eye was out of square...:p

Flo wrote in post #5804835
Lol MJ.I made sure the eye was out of square...:p

Yea. Dat's watt ah meant--outta da squar.

tkoutdoor wrote in post #5804471
None of the crops set with me as being perfect. I kept looking for that perfect crop in a common frame size and haven't quite come up with it yet. My favorite is probably the portrait view though I keep wishing I could do something with the landscape view. It seems like I'm just close to having the ideal crop, but for some reason I can't quite pull it off. I'd like to see someone else's idea of the right crop if they could see how to make it just right. You're welcome to give it a go and repost it. Maybe I'll learn something to use for the next bird pic.

tkoutdoor - a point you made "...perfect crop in a common frame size..." You hit one of my "hot" buttons - I don't mean to be a PITA, bit it drives me wild that folks are slaves to paper size - in my never to be humble opinion, the subject and the composition dictate how to crop a picture, not the paper size. I have a good paper cutter...

I know this will start a wildfire -

Crop to maximize the image, and if you are planning to frame the photo, have a custom mat made so it fits in a standard opening.

I know my theory drives my friend wild - 1) because he does not like mats - likes borderless, and 2) when he hangs his borderless prints, he wants them to be the same size.

Maybe tonight, I'll take a cut at recropping your pic.