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Crazyhorse

Crazyhorse

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Hi

I notice in a lot of wildlife shots, particularly bird shots, it looks like sometimes the photographer has put a different background in. These seem to be either mottled green or a really nice deep beige colour with a mottled effect (If that makes sense).

Could someone please explain to me how they do it as I have cs4 but have never mastered the art of doing this successfully. All my attempts look like the animal has been cut and pasted.

Many thanks.:thumbs:

Lisa
 
A lot of the time it's just the effect of perspective compression when you use a long lens like a 300mm or 400mm with a wide aperture (f/2.8 or the like).

Basically, it's all about depth of field. If the background is far enough behind the subject it will appear out of focus and you'll get a blurred background.
 
As far as I'm aware none of the bird shots on the forum that I've seen recently have replaced backgrounds :shrug: But I could be wrong.

Like specialman says, it's all about the depth of field. Using f/5.6 (or less if you can) up to about f/8 (depending on how far back your background is of course), will give you those kind of results :)

HTH
 
Thanks, I hadn't thought about that.

Lisa
 
u mean like this?
IMG_1447-TP.jpg


behind the bird is a farmhouse, bushes, fields and lots of heathland....
But with the severe DoF thats what you see. No PS :)
 
Or this green graduated background!

p415839645-3.jpg


No Photoshop... just the field and a path out of focus.
 
Nice one Trev, could i ask how do you find using the Sigma 170-500mm APO DG lens? a Newbie ty.
 
Trev Rich said:
this is gonna turn into a look at my background shot :)
Click to expand...

Or like this :D Golden rule of good bokeh, keep as much distance as you can form subject to background. Not always possible mind it. ;)

IMG_0668800x533.jpg
 
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