Welcome to PROJECT 52-7 for the year 2015.
PROJECT 52-7-27-Natural - Bird
Images for Project 52-7-26 are to be taken between the 14 July 2015 Tuesday and 20 July 2015.
Rules
1. Anyone and everyone interested in the challenge is eligible. The goal continues to be have fun and share comments, concepts, insights, and techniques
with fellow Pentaxians.
2. Each week will feature a Theme and Sub-concept for you to explore.
3. Post your single picture in Project 52-7 thread for the week. Explain what motivated you to take the picture and/or how you feel it represents the weekly
theme.
4. Some post-processing is OK (adjusting white balance, exposure, color saturation), but let's try to stay away from heavily PP'ed images here. Try to
keep the creativity to photographic techniques and the captures themselves.
5. Since this project is about technique, and not camera, shots taken by non Pentax cameras are allowed.Cameras may be SLRs, DSLRs, Point & Shoot,
Medium Format, et cetera.
6. There is one “Theme Concept” labeled “black and white,” but feel free to post black and white, sepia, monotone, etc., for any of the other themes.
7. The picture you post should be taken during the week in which the theme is active to be eligible for judging.
8. Any picture taken from thread start date to listed closing date is acceptable. You may request to submit a photo outside of the time frame, but its
acceptance is dependent on the judge of the week. Please try and keep to within a day or two (either way) of the week. This is to make allowances for
those that would like to participate, but for one or other reason, are not able to do so during the time given for the challenge, such as illness, weather,
travelling etc.
9. The WINNER of each weekly challenge is the JUDGE of the next week's Project 52-7
10. JUDGE may participate the challenge, but the picture of JUDGE will be comment by 2nd and 3rd WINNER, and there is no podium place for JUDGE's picture. *** New Rules ***
11. The Facilitator (in this case scomatic) may participate in the challenge, provided he/she is not the judge.
12. Closing date for the challenge is Monday at midnight in your time zone, this will encourage people to snap the picture during weekend and post it up on next days. Late entries are accepted but subject to the acceptance by the current weeks JUDGE. ** Amendment **
JUDGE need to provide either with Option A or Option B or Both AB options criteria when during JUDGEMENT *** New Rules ***:
OPTION A (Just provide 1-10 point on each criteria and average out is the overall point)
Technical criteria
- Exposure Focus/sharpness
- Colour and/or tonal rendition
- Contrast
- Lighting
Visual and aesthetic criteria
- Framing and choice of viewpoint
- Background
- Design elements and principles
- Visual impact
Content
- Emotion / Mood /Feeling
- Relevance
Viewer’s response
- Excitement
- Interest
OPTION B (Good / Bad comment)
Example:
the good: Composition is perfect, I like your lighting. blah blah blah
the bad: I think leveling the horizon would be better, the blown out highlights on top left are distracting to me. blah blah blah.
Introduction
The most critical technical issue is to get close. If you're patient, you're in luck. If you think bird photography is as easy as snapping away with a long lens, you're asking for trouble. My avid bird photographer friends spend hours every dawn and dusk crawling around in the mud sneaking up on birds, and even with 500mm lenses and teleconverters they're having to crop everything.
No matter how close you get, it's rarely close enough. I'll get into gear below, but your efforts are better spent learning how to get close and pay attention to light.
Instead of buying a 600mm lens, first consider a pair of waders or a blind which will give better results for one percent of the price!
Many people give up photographing wild birds because of the crummy results they usually get. It takes expensive equipment, a lot of patience and a lot of photos to get anything more than little specks.
What Makes a Great Bird Photo?
Like every photo, it needs to be interesting and be much more than just a record.
Lighting
Light is critical. Prefer side or back lighting and morning or afternoon light.
Gesture
Static portraits of anything are boring.
Show birds doing something interesting.
Show them singing, flying, playing with their friends, or anything that makes them birds.
A girlfriend of a famous bird photographer once thought she needed the big glass her famous boyfriend had. All she had was a 300mm zoom. She paid attention to what the birds were doing. She paid better attention to the light. She got close with patience, not with big scary glass. Her shots were much better than her famous boyfriends, and my friends agreed when they saw her shots. Her shots were alive. The big guys' shots were dull and boring.
General
Get close.
Be patient.
Wait for the best light.
Show us birds having fun, not just sitting around.
Always shoot, but only show your best shots.
Birds in Flight Focus
AF cameras make this easy. Use Nikon's Continuous AF (AF-C) mode or Canon's AI Servo mode. These modes let the cameras track moving subjects. Set your camera to use all the focus sensors. In Nikon this is the Dynamic AF Area Mode, whose icon is a box in the middle with little dots all around it. These modes let the camera use different AF sensors as the bird flies around in your frame.
It's trivial for any AF camera to track a moving bird against a blank sky. It's tougher if it's flying in front of a background, and even tougher if the bird is flying in between trees.
Example of best photo:
Quote: 
Post #3 by GrimWolf
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