The pigeon and the fountain

[LeviathanFafner]

I was wondering if I should have bumped up the aperture on this photo to make the background a little bit clearer. I also toned down the color on this image to give it a little more of a depressing look. Any comments would be helpful Thanks in advance.

Camera: Nikon D90
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 90 mm
Exposure: +0.50
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: No Flash

[cphoniball]

I think if you had made the background any clearer it would compete for attention with the pigeon, which is (currently) the subject of your photo.

I can't tell if you already did or not, but adding a very slight vignette to it would help draw my attention to the pigeon more. It looks to me like everything is more or less the same value throughout and the pigeon kinda blends with the background.

[LeviathanFafner]

So, should I have boost the colors a litttle bit?

[cphoniball]

Maybe... haha. Sharpening up the pigeon might help as well. I was approaching it with the goal of making the pigeon stand out more, but that'll be pretty hard to do, considering it's gray. So you might well be better off with what you have now.

[LeviathanFafner]

I'll play with it a little and see what I come up with.

[LeviathanFafner]

Well I played with it and came up with this first:


Then I played with split toning a bit:

[Samanax]

The color version is much better than the original. Don't care for the split toning image.

The composition could use some work. The railing is drawing too much attention away from the other parts of the picture. If the pigeon and fountain are the main subjects you might want to try getting closer next time and have the pigeon fill up more of the frame while still including the fountain in the background. When you get closer to your subject the DOF get shallower and the background goes more out of focus.

[Wombat]

Yep.
You may ask Mr pigeon to let you come more close next time.

Just crop the railing a bit an it will be OK.
Color version is nice.

[LeviathanFafner]

Thanks for the advice guys, and now for the forth installment of "The pigeon and the fountain"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fafnerphoto/3594321860/

[Samanax]

A better composition, but the bird poop is a little too graphic now (and I'm having dinner while viewing this...yuk...)