Wildlife Photography across the Water: Be Straight

Sunday 13 December 2009

Be Straight

There have been some rumblings in the press and forums lately about people not being straight with the truth or actually cheating, The big one was about a Floridian photographer who has been trying to make his name in the business actually entering a large American wildlife competition and when asked for the RAW files declined as they had been overly altered in photoshop and also the details given about where the images were taken were found to be false-A reputation in any business takes many years to get but only a few seconds to destroy, This story not only shot around the forums but also made it into the Washington post!!!, The people who run the competition actually named and shamed the photographer-so beware, Along the same lines but not as serious are people whi try to pull the wool over your eyes by putting very nice images up on forums of small shy birds taken with smallish lenses and not putting up that the image is cropped in any way, Its always been a bug bear of mine, Just say that the image is cropped and even by roughly what amount, A few percent is neither here nor there but 30-70% is a major alteration of the image and should be stated-its only yourself that you are cheating after all, I saw a very nice image a few weeks ago taken with a smallish lens and the guy was asked if it was a large crop and even to show the RAW file-both of which he denied-whats the point??

Here an example of what i am talking about-not the best image but i took it the other week for this particular blog but havent managed to get around to getting it done until today

Now the thing that gives many image way is the excessive grain for the given ISO showing either a heavy crop or excessive under exposure in the original image-now as in the example above i have used noise reduction to try and mask the heavy grain-here i was using a high ISO and with the heavy crop it just acentuates the grain even further
When taking images always have in your mind that the finished image will be the one you are taking and not well i have a high megapixel camera so i can crop it-thats just bad photography-well in my opinion anyway

Dave

3 comments:

Peter Edge13 December 2009 at 19:33
A very good point and well made. I would just add that many shots on the forums are posted for critique and to my mind anyway the way I critique a shot of wildlife to a large extent takes into account the necessary fieldcraft. When I see a lovely Kingfisher shot, i am impressed by how well the tog did to get so close to a shy bird. If the thing is a 90% crop then there has been very little fieldcraft just post production sleight of hand IMHO.
Pete
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edenrover13 December 2009 at 20:05
Professional maybe, but we can't all afford 500 mm lenses but enjoy taking photos of wildlife without disturbing them. cropping is another tool we have available.
David
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Dave14 December 2009 at 16:38
The point i was making was just to be truthful in what you are doing and how the image was made, It has nothing to do with the size of the lens,You can take images with smaller lenses by using hides etc, It doesnt matter if you decide to crop an image but when putting it up for critique let people know so that they can take that into account
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Bio's

David Courtenay, a self taught wildlife and nature photographer, has been capturing images for over 30 years. He has had a passion for wildlife since early childhood and remembers being glued to the television whenever Survival, Wildlife on One and other natural history documentaries were shown. In the 2006 he swapped his established career for the life of a wildlife photographer, such a move demands a measure of uncompromising passion and commitment.

David has travelled extensively throughout Europe as well as spending more than 7 months in India working with local guides and trackers in search of Bengal Tiger, Asian One horned Rhino and Asian Elephant. He has also photographed Wildlife in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sumatra, Africa, Canada and America. Working closely with Conservation companies he tries to raise funds to help Wildlife that has been put on the endangered list by poaching and habitation loss

Martin Dyer has had a passion for avian wildlife since childhood, particularly raptors. Photography was also another keen interest and it was with the specific availability and control of the whole process that digital offers that Martin was then able to combine the two in 2003. Based in the UK, Martin is a regular visitor to Scotland, specifically the Isle of Mull to watch the Eagles resident there. Other trips to Europe and around the UK are usually part of Martin’s agenda in a typical year.

However, as a firm believer on making the most of the local patch, Martin has spent a lot of time and hard work creating a wildlife garden which is reaping the rewards with many new species and varieties of wildlife. A keen member of a number of wildlife photographic groups, Martin is keen to expand his portfolio into other areas of wildlife, and has already established a wide portfolio of images of fungi.