Natural Wildlife

This one of the photos that I had taken on my trip to the local duckpond earlier his week. One of the swans came quite close to the side so I thought I could get a close up of just its head. I thought by concentrating on a small area it would an interesting and different composition.

To get narrow field of view I used a focal length of 300mm; the maximum for the lens I was using. I had the camera in shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/400^th of a second. To capture the correct exposure the camera used an aperture of F7.1; this also ensured that enough of the swan was in focus but with the background out of focus. I had to use an ISO of 1250 to enable the use of the narrower aperture.

To edit the photo I increased the contrast but I also turned down the highlights because the white feathers where starting to white-out. I also decreased the colour temperature to make the whites look purer. I also sharpened the photo a small amount to counter the noise that had been generated.

I really enjoyed taking photos at the duckpond, I really like wildlife photography. You have to be very patient, but it pays off because you get fantastic photos of animals in their natural habitats. The weather looks ideal for wildlife photography this weekend so if I get a chance I will be out again taking photos of whatever wildlife I can find.

Mat