There is an extreme lack of detail to this photo and I think most of it is due to the use of excessive JPEG compression. Your file size of only 13k indicates a highly compressed image and that is what is robbing a lot of the detail and sharpness from this image. I can see lots of compression artifacts around the high contrast edges of the wings. Check your compression settings when you save your file. Always adjust JPEG compression so that your file size is as large as possible, but within the challenge limit. (150k for this one)
There are also some dark shadows on the bird, which can be hard to avoid with a shot like this. Here's a very similar shot of my own.. (Not a challenge entry, though) My file size is 57K, which is still small, and I can just start to make out some artifacts around the edges, if I look for them. It took some careful adjustments to get what detail I did, backlit against the sky.
One more thing, is that for member challenges, you can use an image size of 720 pixels. Using less than the allowed max on one edge will probably cost some points.
I am voting a 3 on this, which is what I give the average snapshot, but I think with the right adjustments, this would get mostly votes of 4 and 5. |