Photographed yesterday at Harns Marsh Preserve in SW Florida. How did I do?
A little dark but otherwise quite nice.
Jeffcs
Loc: Myrtle Beach South Carolina
Agreed a bit dark I’d do a couple things
1-adjust brightness
2-clone the road gravel out
3-add catch light in the eye
Nice image
Sharp image. Great golden hour lighting. Well done. I wouldn't clone any gravel out or add catchlights. You got a nice clear closeup shot of what you saw. That's plenty good enough.
We have a place near where I live where the sandhill cranes come to spend the winter. The problem is they tend to stay as far away from the dirt road as they can making it hard to get close enough to get a clear picture. It's nice you're able to get a close shot like that.
Nalu
Loc: Southern Arizona
Technically it's a nice shot. Perhaps a bit underexposed that you should be able to adjust in post. As far as the shot itself, if you had the opportunity to get the bird without the road I think it would be a better "scene".
What should I replace the road with?
I suppose you could clone the greenery you see behind it. Or you could try water and make it look like it's walking along the water's edge.
Here at Harns Marsh Preserve in SW Florida the Sandhills ignore humans. We even had, to our astonishment, a group of them walk right through where we were standing. No fear of humans
Not so here in northern California. There's a small river delta island called Staten Island where they overwinter. A two track dirt road runs through it and the birds tend to congregate 500' or so off the road. As the sun sets they start coming in from somewhere and you get some good shots of them in flight or landing.
wizard wrote:
Photographed yesterday at Harns Marsh Preserve in SW Florida. How did I do?
My opinion only: The enemy of a great photo is a good photo. This is a decent photo. In fact, I would argue that the other photos in this thread are not "great" photos.
This is a pic of a bird on the side of the road. Since you did not allow for a download, I cannot tell exactly how in-focus the shot is and how the animal's feathers look. The road detracts from the shot. And even it it were not there, I would not spend time on this photo unless it was for the memory book. I would not enter this photo in a contest or display it as my best work. The bird is kind of looking for something to pick up off the ground. Capture a pic of the bird with something in its mouth, and you have a better photo.
Wildlife photos need to have something more than just the animal on the side of the road. They need environment, they need to be doing something, either natural or seemingly interesting, such as hunting, mating, preening, looking at the camera. If none of that takes place, then they have to be of such magnificence or uniqueness that they are ineresting. Barring that, there has to be something else in the photo that captures the viewer. This is why wildlife is so danged difficult...a mixture of luck and patience to get the shot.
Examples below...this photo of the bird is clear...you can see the feathers, etc. But it is just a bird sitting on a branch. It might be ok for a book to simply identify the bird, but is it something I would show as evidence of my wildlife photo skills? Probably not. (And the tail part is slightly out of focus and highlights there kind of blown?)
On the other-hand, the photo of the bush-baby peeking out at me...is (IMO) a good photo. There is personality and the animal is doing something unique...playing peek a boo with me. In focus and the catch-lights in the eyes add personality to the animal. (I used a flash at nite on this.) I would and have shown this photo and it has done well in judging.
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