You are right. to obtain a good detail in your image, your subject has to be close enough. That's my nr 1 rule.
If this Coot was like 25m away i would not even begin and try photographing ;) because i know the result will be a grainy image with almost no detail on the bird. ;) We nature photographers often use prime lenses. That means those lenses cannot zoom in. We already have to frame the object and already think how the outcome should be. A perfect framing almost never exist ;) with long telephoto lenses.
But you can make that compositon and edit (crop) it somewhat better in processing. Photographing 100% wild birds is hard and they often sit very far away. I always try to get them used to me so they come much much closer.
Just like this Coot. After laying belly flat the Coot became curious about what i did. So he moved closer and saw i was no threat.
I do crop images like everyone of us does. I always tend to keep 75% of my real image to keep enough detail on my subject because that is what i feel is important.
Hey i could even show you portrait images from this Coot. Sometimes the bird could not fit into my frame. So i just could make some headshots :)
Cropping is perfectly good with photography. It's part of post editing. I wonder why he asked?
I'm not saying it is wrong. On the contrary.. It can make or break your photo. But I'm a photographer who doesn't work after my photos. So I try to shoot the photo perfect at once, which is extremely difficult. Now I'm not furmiliar with nature photography so I'm just very curious what you did to shoot a awesome photo like this.
I once did the same. Trying to photograph the perfect image without editing. But hey. our camera's do not see what the naked eye can see... It is actually impossible to photograph a perfect image :) Dynamic range and stuff. Why do filters even exist then? My images ask like a 5 minute work in max. I just adjust the colours, contrast, a bit of sharpening, whitebalance if it looks wrong. I almost always make a better looking composition or crop (how i like it, or what is my kind of taste). I never work in layers... Just very basic correction are more than fine for me.
And I can see why. I know perfect photos do not exist, but this my addiction. Also, I'm to lazy to edit at all. Lol
ahhhhhhhhhh there was the real reason hehehehehe
(i also don't like to edit!!! can't it just be perfect from the beginning??? not just photos - LIFE!!!) HAHAHA
Hear hear!!