Head Angle Fine Points

[Arthur Morris]

I will be posting pairs of images here when available, hopefully every few days at most. Please let me know which head angle that you think is best. After a bit, I will share my opinions. We are beginning with a tough one. All of the images that I will be posting are extracted JPEGs pretty much as they came out of the camera. Because I stopped down here to save the whites I did lighten each of these images before posting.

Important note: this is an ongoing thread. You can learn a lot by scrolling down but if you have played before and are re-visiting it would be best to go to the last page and scroll down to see the latest offerings.


Don't be shy. Play!

Image A.

 

[Arthur Morris]

Image B. Warning: this pair is a very tough call I do have a definite opinion as to which one I prefer but there is nothing to say that my opinion will be correct. The idea here is for everyone to learn and to freely exchange their thoughts.

 

[Arthur Morris]

If anyone has two unprocessed images that they would like to post here, please send them to me first via e-mail to [email protected] as 800 wide, less than 200kb JPEGs. I will post those that I consider appropriate.

 

[Aidan Briggs]

I'd go with image B for the slight tilt towards us.

 

[Arthur Morris]

Ah, at least we have one brave young soul.

 

[Rich Steel]

Image B for me to which seems to have better eye contact with the viewer, whereas Image A seems to be looking foward.

 

[Dan Brown]

It seems too obvious to be right, but I agree that image B has better creature-to-viewer contact. I would of course keep both!

 

[Jackie Schuknecht]

B for me too. Has better eye contact. "A" looks like the HA is parallel to the sensor plane.

 

[Michael Lotito]

My vote goes to image 2. The head angle give the bird a personality.

 

[Ian McHenry]

Well I'll go for image "A" as although "B" is more engaging If I were taking a picture in the field for ID purposes "A" would get my vote. Bill & forehead appear a smidgin sharper as compared to "B" which appears to have been moving it's head.
Cheers: Ian Mc

 

[Ken Watkins]

"B" for me as well, it is more engaging.

 

[Phil Ertel]

I have to admit I am a bit conflicted on my choice. Tuff choice!

It appears to me that Image A head angle resulted in the head/beak to be parallel to the senor. Thus the beak and head/eye are all the same focal plane resulting in the eye and beak being sharp.

The pose/head turn in Image B appears to me to have put the end of the beak and eye in different focal planes. However, depth of field seems sufficient to maintain the sharpness. I am curious, what was your f-stop and distance to subject? The pose in Image B does provides the viewer the perception of interaction/connection with the penguin which is a plus for me.

Based on my preference and emotions I select Image B as having the better head angle.

An interesting exercise, I an anxious to hear your thoughts.

 

[Arthur Morris]

1/500 sec. at f/7.1 with the Canon 70-200mm with the 1.4X II TC hand held at 280mm with the MIV. This is going great; I am thrilled that so many are playing. I will try to remember to post my thoughts tonight! Lots more to come.

 

[Christopher Miller]

I prefer "B" too. Much more engaging pose IMO.

 

[William Malacarne]

I prefer B for the same reasons that others have posted.

Bill

 

[allanrube]

I would like Artie to say A as I took many loon shots yesterday with this head angle. However, the slightly turned towards you ha is better - B.

 

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks all for participating. I deleted A after saving it for this feature. The head of bird A is pretty much parallel to the back of the camera as many of you noted and this is a fine acceptable head angle (for me) for a perfect field guide portrait with the bird's body also parallel to the back of the camera. Here is the important lesson that nobody picked up on: in both of the images, each created in the same tenth of a second, the bird's body is angled slightly towards us. In these situations, the very minimum requirement is that the bird's head be on straight, that is, parallel to its body. In A the bird's head is actually turned away from the direction that the bird itself is pointed. In B, with the head turned just a bit more towards us, the head is on straight. As many noted, it seems that the bird is more engaged with us. For me, that is caused by the way the light is hitting the bird's face. In A, the face in front of the eye is darker than in B because the head is turned away from us and from the light. Even though it was cloudy, the light still had a direction. My two cents. After commenting on a few comments I will post two more. Good luck! Just to be clear, B has the best head angle.

Note: Thanks to Jon Saperia for correcting the typo above. Glad that someone was paying attention.

 

[Arthur Morris]

'A' seems to have the perfect angle, just a few degrees off the parallel plane, but there is no interaction between the bird and us. This headangle misses the intimacy a good headangle should accomplish.'B' has a headangle that one could argue is a little too much (25°?), but there is definitely contact with the bird which, for me, makes the difference.

Peter, my friend. You must either be bad in math or the Swiss use different degrees than we do In B I would estimate that the bird, and its head, are angled about 8 degrees towards us.

 

[Arthur Morris]

I have to admit I am a bit conflicted on my choice. Tuff choice! It appears to me that Image A head angle resulted in the head/beak to be parallel to the senor. Thus the beak and head/eye are all the same focal plane resulting in the eye and beak being sharp. The pose/head turn in Image B appears to me to have put the end of the beak and eye in different focal planes. However, depth of field seems sufficient to maintain the sharpness. I am curious, what was your f-stop and distance to subject? The pose in Image B does provides the viewer the perception of interaction/connection with the penguin which is a plus for me. Based on my preference and emotions I select Image B as having the better head angle. An interesting exercise, I an anxious to hear your thoughts.

You would up with the right answer. I do believe that in many case when the bird's head is turned 2-3 degrees towards us, with the bird perfectly parallel to the back of the camera, that they eye and the bill tip will be on the same plane, thus rendering both sharper....

 

[Arthur Morris]

Head Angle Fine Point #2

Here is image C.