Bird Photographers Need This Tip!

If you forget to level the photo until after you've made your selection of the bird or whatever, is it possible to get the selection to move with the photo? Or do you have to re-select the bird?

Good tip about the water ripples - thank you.

Preach!

If you shoot using Camera Raw adjustments of the horizon are simple and quick

Hii Matt..Nice video..
I have Sony a7r4 model camera ( discontinued). I have facing exposure issue in this camera. When I take pictures using manual mode ( ss- 3200, iso- auto, f-8, exposure- - 7/-1) using this settings, after that pictures are high exposure.. I can't see the white color portion of the subject ( if subject is white)..Any solution to clear this issue??
Regards
Basil Jose
Abudhabi

absolutely my bugbear! 😂 and CostaMesa Photography's tip is good too - I use that often.

Thank you, Matt for this great tips how to tackle this situation which can be really challenging sometimes - especially if there is just water and no pronounced ripples . In such cases I have been using the roll angle of my camera at time of capture. Take the value from EXIF data and enter this as angle for orientation - usually gives a very good result for me or at least a starting point for further alignment.

I think it's important to consider that only watery horizons are level. Landmass horizons may not be level. Also, coastlines/shorelines may not be horizontal, yet often when only a few degrees off, look better when they are "levelled".

Thanks. Note that horizons are not always level. Even the water against the far bank will not appear level is the shore is not perpendicular to where you are standing. For instance, in architectural shots you work to have vertical lines, as the priority. Roof tops, etc, may appear out of level is the building is at an angle to you. Too much emphasis on being "technically" right...

Thank you for this video, as an OCD photographer, this just jumps out at me and shocked how so many people don't see it. It's my very first step when I go to edit a photo before even cropping.

This is a good tip Matt. It is something I often struggle with but I find sometimes, if I straighten based on the waterline, even though I'm certain it is straight, the direction of travel and the bird's wake appears off. Sometimes, I just have to choose the lesser of two evils and adjust the crop as needed. I use to struggle with landscapes in a similar way with sloped horizons due to diagonal slopes and terraces or horizontal objects in the foreground. In the field, I was meticulous to level the scene in camera but it just looked off based on other elements in the scene. Sometimes correct just doesn't look correct even when it is and I had to learn to be flexible with perfectly level.

Love your work Matt - great tutorials packed with sensible pragmatic advice. I've obsessed with levelling the camera in the field or straightening in post-processing yet the perspective of a receding or curving shoreline without a horizon can fool the eye. Sometimes you just have to go by feel. There is a favourite spectacular photo of a nesting pair of Albatrosses on a sub-Antarctic island in Sebastiao Salgado's " Genesis" book: the horizon is a whole 5° off! As an experiment, I straightened it in PS and wasn't surprised that the result was still superb but the composition had lost the tension and spontaneity of the original. It just shows that rules can be broken if you do it with intent - the difference between a genius and us mere mortals. 🙏

Many thanks for your great video

Great tip and video! However, in my experience, ripples can be angled. It’s indeed a clue, but you have to interpret it. Couldn’t you counter-check with the focus plane? Water is horizontal. The intersection of the focus plane and the surface of water should be too, shouldn’t it?

Hi Matt, I totally agree! it is indeed a very good tip for when you don't see the horizon. When I see the horizon as well as the waterline against the shore, I would prefer to align using the shoreline, because you could have a small hill, or vegetation giving you a false sense of where the horizon is. It perturbs me to see the waterline being not straight, in an attempt to use an false horizon.
You could also use the reflection in the water, when there are no ripples.

North Beach?

Hope you shared to your Facebook group 🤣😂🤣

I always wince when I see a beautifully edited photo and the horizon and/or verticals are all off. Why spend all time editing and miss the horizon. It should be the first thing done so you know what there is to work with.

Sorry, someone already commented about this..... I like you choices for rotating the image especially when the horizon (at distance) is in the frame. However, using the wave direction is sometimes dubious, many of these ripples are caused by the wind direction and so might appear to be rotated compared to a horizon. Another way to do it when the horizon is not there but the water is, is to look for the reflection of the subject in the water. For example, maybe you can see the reflection of the tip of the beak, a straight line from there to the actual end of the beak should be vertical since the water surface is on average horizontal. In the end, it's an artistic choice.

So obvious to most 🙄

I totally agree. It p'turbs me when I look at a photo and it has a crooked horizon line. I personally check every photo to make sure it is straight. I prefer to fix it in post just because when you are talking especially about birds, you are sometimes reacting to something that happens so fast, you are concentrating more on capturing it than checking if you are perfectly straight.

Good stuff. When I can see a reflection in the water I use the straighten tool vertically from the bird eye to the reflection of the bird eye.

One more tip that didn't show up in your examples would be where you have a reflection of your subject in the water, but no visible horizon line (or water textures/ripples to help). The reflection can be used to level the photo, drawing the orienting line vertical connecting matching features of the subject.

This is now going to become like a music "ear worm"! Good point, thank you.

Oddly, I always straighten by rotating the crop with a grid on it.