Air Brakesby
o2bskatingComment by taterbug: Greetings from the Critique Club,
You have the distinct honor of recieving my first official and formal critique :-) I hope you are cool with that. The good thing is, that I will be checked up on, so if I am totally full of baloney I'll hear about it! (just kidding :-), I shall try to give you a good view of my opinion)
This is your entry in the 'Square Crop' challenge. First off, your shot definitely fits the challenge well, easy to discern in this case, since it is indeed a square crop. I happen to be a fan of the square crop. I look for an image though that works well and/or is strengthened by it. I feel in this image, it works very well. Your composition forms a nice vertical across the square, and lets the eye travel nicely over the photo, and then that is a great capture of the bird to keep the viewer anchored on the shot with interest.
The exposure looks pretty good, and I like the subtle backlighting that shows in the wings and tail. The sky has a nice natural gradation to it, and a nice blue that I think goes nicely with the light colors of the bird. As noted in several of the comments on the entry, there does appear to be a fair amount of noise/grain present, and the body of the bird seems to not be too sharp. At first, I thought maybe you had to go with a high ISO to get fast enough shutter speed to catch the action, but I see your ISO was 100. One might think that focus was just off a little, due to the bird being hard to capture in flight, but seeing the grain in the sky, I might guess that you did aggressive cropping? I don't see what lens was used, but an extreme crop could cause graininess perhaps. If that is the case, maybe a little looser crop would of still worked well and made for a little stronger presentation. I think that, by the comments given, the noise/grain issue was a big factor in your final score.
Definitely a great capture, catching him with the wings in that position. Great action, and a stimulating composition. I'm sure without the grain issue, this shot would of scored much higher.
If you have any questions, or comments, or wish to discuss any of these points, or if you have any feedback at all concerning this critique, feel free to pm me.
Happy shooting,
taterbug :-)
Photographer found comment helpful.
