New Zealand (bird) trip

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guess&press

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Name
Dave
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This from the South Island. I'm pretty sure it's a male and female tomtit, though confirmation would be great. Crits please.

View attachment 21709

Full version: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5159779/DSC_0230.JPG

I know a bit of cropping is needed, but I thought straight from the camera was preferable because, apart from any advice about the capture end which I'm also very keen on, I'd like to know how to get pics looking their best for web presentation, as so many of you are clearly very good at! :)

Tia.
 
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Very small in the frame and conflicting light so not really more than a record shot TBH :)
 
Thanks for the reply gramps. I've seen some of your images and they are excellent. Now I'm trying to work out what people value in photos on this site, or anywhere--I've not been at this long. So it's a doddle to crop the image and tweak it a bit so the male's head doesn't crush the blacks so much, like this...

View attachment 21755

...but something tells me this will still not pass muster! It looks quite dramatic to me but I'm the first to say I haven't got much of a clue as to what works. Does 'conflicting light' mean the shadow on the female for instance? What else is wrong? :)

I was glad even to get it as a shot of record by the way--the little blighters were dodging all over the place!

Thanks again.
 
Yes by 'conflicting light' I mean the shadow on the birds ... however on checking images of a tomtit (not native to the UK) I see that some have a black head - I missed that fact so it isn't shadow with that one, however it is so dark that there is little detail in the head.
It can be very difficult with small fast-moving birds in foliage ... earlier in the week I was photographing a couple of little wrens amongst leafy hedge cuttings and only managed to get about 15% image success! :)
 
Thanks again gramps. I imagine some detail on the male's head can be recovered with a bit more tweaking, but I'm glad to understand what you were getting at. As I spent so long looking at them I forgot the black head would be unfamiliar to people here. And there could still be some shadowing going on--that is very black. Or it could be underexposed...argh!

I took quite a few and why this one, and one other, looked miles sharper than the rest was and is unclear to me. Just going to have to accept that that's how it goes I guess!
 
[please ignore--unexpected results from image upload]
 
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