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01/09/2007 09:41:24 AM |
| To add to what Falc and Larus already said (and I agree), the egrit looks a bit unnatural, from the bluish cast to the feathers. While overall the background is distracting, the biggest thing that pulls me from the subject is the blown out area at the base of the egrit's neck and the grass to the left. Our eyes are drawn to areas of high contrast in photographs; which works ok for most of the neck, but the very first thing I look at is the white in the background. |
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01/08/2007 07:59:48 AM |
| Well I was going to leave a pretty detailed comment but I just read Keith´s comment and it´s very detailed and pretty much said all I meant to say as well. I too would have voted this a 4 and for the very same reasons, a little oversaturated and the cluttered backround. It is hardly a bad photograph though and I really encourage you to keep entering in challenges, this has a lot of potential so keep it up! |
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01/08/2007 07:49:36 AM |
Hi Richard, thanks for the reminder, I'll certainly give you as much help as I can. I am not a wildlife photographer specialist but do have some experience in judging wildlife competitions.
I have the image open on a 19" calibrated LCD screen and my first impression is that the colour saturation and contrast have been boosted a little too far. Maybe you intended that, or maybe your monitor needs calibrating too.
The next point I notice is that you too this at f2.8 which is good, but just go and check the very best wildlife and bird photos and you will see that without exception the background has been knocked way out of focus. They manage to do that by positioning themselves so the background is a long way behind the bird. In your image the background rock looks to be in sharper focus than the bird, therefore they compete with the bird for attention. The background is generally too cluttered and distracting. This aspect is crucial for bird photography and brings me to the next point. Bird photography relies more on field craft and camera positioning than any aspect of photography I know. I am terrible at field craft and can never get close enough to birds to get a decent shot.
Composition. Unless you are going in very tight and wanting a closeup detail image then you simply MUST include all of the bird. Not a single feather, toe or in this case leg must be outside the frame. Every element must be in sharp crisp focus unless the bird is in action when some movement blur can be allowed. Look at this image for a good example 
To me your composition feels forced. You say you cropped on the left to remove a shadow, thats fine but trying to sort out compositional errors in post processing is the wrong way round. Time spent behind the camera is worth 10x any spent in front of a PC screen. Get it right in the viewfinder first.
So what did I score this image?, well I scored it a 4 and to be honest I stand by that mark. Focus, composition and cluttered background are three basic technique faults which need to be worked on.
I hope that doesn't sound too discouraging, and I hope it helps point out some of the places you can improve on. If you feel it would help then feel free to ask me for a pre-challenge critique. If I have time I will give you a view of your work. Of course I will not vote on any image I have previous sight of.
Hope that helps, good luck.
Keith
(Falc) |
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Comments Made During the Challenge  |
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01/07/2007 09:40:06 PM |
| nice colors and composition. 8 |
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01/06/2007 07:41:13 PM |
| The rock is very cool. I am afraid the bird suffres a bit from being out of focus just slightly or maybe a bit too much unsharpmaske. |
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01/03/2007 08:25:02 PM |
| nice shot its a great egret |
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01/03/2007 07:03:54 PM |
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| Photographer found comment helpful. |
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01/01/2007 01:03:08 AM |
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| Photographer found comment helpful. |
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