MOTIF (open bill): another crandon visitor

Awesome shot, loe the open bill and the BG. A bit more DOF to get the bill into focus would be great though.













Kidding

A very nice motif shot, even with the soft bill tip

I remember exactly the day that was taken
Great capture, D, and the bg is awesome too. Shame about the bill






he he he It's fine with me

Sorry, the OOF bill tip ruins this for me..... :roll:

you guys are truly terrible

Sorry if you already know this but your commentary puts me into instructor mode. Yes technically the head is parallel to the sensor/film plane in this shot however that is not what we mean when we say parallel to the film plane. What we mean with that is that the eye and the tip of the bill is the precise same distance from the film plane. This only occurs with a 3-5 degree turn of the head toward the camera since the tip of the bill is on the center line of the birds head while the eye is in front of the center line. When I teach workshops I have an overhead illustration of this but I think you can visualize what I am saying. So, often when the head is parallel to the plane, and the eye and tip of the bill are not, the tip of the bill will be behind the critical point of focus while the eye is perfectly in focus. Furthermore, when taking a head shot and the focus point is on the eye, you are giving away 1/3 of the available DOF in space in front of the bird. On a still subject in ideal conditions, you can actually nudge the point of focus just a tiny bit beyond the eye to get more of the bill/head in focus.

My analysis of this photo shows a bird whose head centerline is parallel to the film plane but critical focus is on the eye/cheek area. In this situation, the bill is a little farther from the film plane resulting the tip to be just slightly out of focus although not so much that most people would have found it objectionable - its only just marginally out of focus. I don't think its due to the bill moving either because the lower mandible drops down when these birds open their mouth and there is no motion blur evident.

In any case, this is a very nice shot.

priceless - i love this place !

ej - these birds often stick their beaks into the ground (i've observed them doing it repeatedly at bosque) and i figured that has the effect of polishing the tip of their beak - i've taken more than one shot of this very same bird and they are all like that - if you've ever seen a polished cattle horn or shoe horn you'll understand as for focus point, it's on the lower mandible since i only use center-point focus (as i had indicated this is a full-frame shot), and not on the cheek but anyway i am glad to see that i caught my fish

oh..forgot to mention... if something is oof, surely the edges of such would be blurry no ?

Don't pay attention to any complaints...you got him/her? great. They are always running away from me
Let's see if tomorrow I can get one close as possible to this one. Daniel, great shot.

Shame on the soft bill tip, gigo!!!

To be honest this is a great shot with excellent sharpness and clean bg ...

Daniel:

The bird is fine, what I like the most is the contast of red on green.

Looks excellent fine..........I wouldn't notice the soft bill if you didn't mention it.

Great headshot Daniel. You asked for it. Isn't this place fun?

I was with Daniel while he took this picture, and out of curiosity, I went to check mine out. I discovered that all the ones taken from the left side of the bird, like his, had the same look on the tip of the bill. On the other hand, each one taken from the right side, is fine. :roll: :roll:
Here is a 100% crop, no editin except for resizing bicubic sharper for the size limit.

With or without the bill being sharp it is a Superb image The bill polishing is interesting and could very well account for the appearance !!! Great detective work Fab

It is interesting to note that we usually like the head turned (very slightly) toward the camera which changes the look entirely (light wise) and additionally it makes sense that would have an effect on the bill tip being at the eye plane. Good point E.J.

This has been a very informative post in many respects and one that makes us unique