The Peacock

Praveen Kumar Kaushal from Bengaluru, loves to photograph nature. He has sent us this photo of a peacock and wants to know how the picture could be improved.

Here are some general points to consider when photographing birds and animals: 1. Try not to cut off parts of the subject, unless you are trying for a close up. Most competition judges for nature photography would reject such pictures right away. 2. Consider the lighting. If you want strong colours, try to take the shots when the light is coming from behind you. A bit of side-lighting would probably be the best for this picture. 3. Consider the pose. Your picture would have looked better if the peacock was photographed with his head somewhat parallel to the camera’s imaging sensor (side profile), instead of looking directly at the camera. A glint in its eye would add to the picture. 4. Whenever you photograph a bird or an animal (actually, a bird is an animal that flies), try to capture some of its activity, rather than a static ‘ here I am, get me’ documentary shot. 5. Often times, a photo of an animal/ bird may look better if some of the surrounding habitat is included.

When it comes to shutter speeds for hand-held photography ( I am assuming that the picture was shot hand-held), try to use a minimum shutter speed that is the reciprocal of the effective focal length, which in your case would be approximately 350mm (1.6x for Canon APS-C cameras). Hence your shutter speed should ideally have been 1/350 sec or higher. Of course, to do that, you would have had to increase your ISO sensitivity (while still retaining your f/7.1 aperture). Increasing ISO sensitivity also increases digital noise. Hence make sure that you do not underexpose.