Savanna Nightjar & its chick

[Arya Sachdeva]

Dear all

I clicked this photo in Bandhavgarh along with Deepankar uncle we were in the same jeep.This bird is found every were in the world They are mostly active in the late evening and early morning or at night, and feed predominantly on moths and other large flying insects.

canon 5D mark II+100-400
f/5.6
ISO 400
1/80
C&C most welcome

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Arya,

Your image is from a higher angle, a kind of top view. Few questions:

1. Is it full frame image or did you crop?

2. How far was the bird from the camera? (in feet approx)

3. What was the focal length used? Means at what mm did you click?

4. Was the original image a bit dark and did you pull up the brightness later?

5. Were you handholding?

6. Why only ISO 400?

7. Did you do any noise reduction during processing?

Cheers,
Sabyasachi
PS: I hope I don't sound like a school master. :)

[Mrudul Godbole]

Nice sighting. Its good you could also photograph the chick. The questions asked by Sabyasachi will help to learn more. Thanks for sharing.

[Arya Sachdeva]

Ans.
1.Yes, it is a full frame image
2.It was approximately 7 feet away from us.
3.I clicked this photo on 200mm.
4.No,I did not pull up the darkness
5.Yes,I was hand holding
6.Dipankar uncle told me do so
7.No,I did not do any noise reduction

this the real image,i have just written the name

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Arya,
Now things become a bit more clear. It is easy to click image of a subject in good light and get a good photo. However, getting a good image in challenging conditions needs a lot of mastery over your technique. I am giving tips as you are young and can learn and soon outshine us and make us proud. Few tips given below:

The light was low and shutter speed was low 1/80th of second. However, with proper techniques you can get a sharp image at 1/80 (provided someone was not moving in the vehicle). For detailed article on handholding check here: Indiawilds: Land of the Tiger. Conservation, Wildlife Photography, Communities (http://www.indiawilds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=268)

The question is about the depth of field ie the amount of area in focus. This is dependent on the aperture used, focal length and the distance to subject. Also another important factor is the focal plane. For details on depth of field check here: Indiawilds: Land of the Tiger. Conservation, Wildlife Photography, Communities (http://www.indiawilds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1081)

When you focus at a point, you are actually focusing on the plane that passes through the area. In this image, the chick is small and when you focus on the mother, the chick is couple of inches below it and the depth of field is not sufficient to cover it. You can also see that the focal plane doesn't pass through the stone below and it is not focused though it is close by.

There is a depth of field preview button in the camera. When you press it, the camera will stop down to the aperture you have used and will show how much area is in focus.

In this case, to get both the mother and chick you need to use a narrow aperture (like f8, f11 etc) or change your shooting angle, so that the mother and child are nearly in the same focal plane. To use a narrow aperture like f8 means you are stopping down the lens by one stop. So the shutter speed will go down by one stop to 1/40 or you have to increase the ISO by one stop ie from ISO 400 to ISO 800. You have to check what aperture is suitable. Generally ISO 400 would have been ok, however you were nearly close to the minimum focusing distance of this lens. The closer you are to the subject, the less is the depth of field.

Also, if the child is there, then it is important that we get it in focus and have part of the mother in focus. So you have to manually adjust the focus. However, we can see that the chick is well hidden as it is near the mother and the stone.

With the 5DII, you can go for a higher ISO. The high ISO files are good. However, it depends upon your exposure. If your original image is underexposed, then the shadow area will be bad. Check the histogram of your image (the graph). If the histogram is touching the left frame then the image is underexposed. You can dial in a positive exposure compensation +1/3, +2/3 as per requirement to push the histogram a bit to the right without touching the right frame. Have a look at this tutorial. Read it a couple of times and you should be able to understand. Indiawilds: Land of the Tiger. Conservation, Wildlife Photography, Communities (http://www.indiawilds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2006)

Your image looks a bit dark. So a positive exposure compensation would have been better. Always better to get things right in the field. During post processing you can also increase the exposure so that the image becomes brighter, however if not done moderately, it will increase noise.

While post processing you can do a little bit of sharpening and it would look better.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi