first pic posted.

[svrider]

hi all
After not picking a camera up for about 20 years i decided to get myself a dslr!
This is my first go at wildlife taken with the kit lens 18-105. It is as it came out of the camera and i would love to see what could be done with it in post processing.
The light was hard on this as i had the sun reflecting of a large frozen lake on my left.
i would like ideas as how to improve this type of shot, Whats wrong and whats right?
Thanks all.
[url]
I had posted this in wildlife but thought it might be better here:shrug:

 

[TinaC]

I like teh composition and the background, The face looks a tiny bit oof and teh body of the bird looks a little blown on my monitor any how. Having said all that, I like it

 

[erding]

Good effort.

The +ve's for m is that it is a nice composition and good tone on the beak

The -ve's is that the white on the swan is blown and you have lost detail. Would be better to spot focus on the white to get the detail there at the expense of the bg or to try something like -1 EV to under expose the shot which should help with the white detail. It also looks a tad soft either from being a large crop or handholding but not being held steady - if it is the latter try using some form of support like a beanbag/monopod/tripod.

HTH

 

[Les McLean]

This is nice, whites in bright light are always difficult to control, so you have done well.

The whites on my monitor are not shown as blown, a bit hot, but I can still see all the detail.

I do like the emty space you have allowed for the bird to look into.

 

[svrider]

Thanks for all the comments,
The shot has not been cropped at all, it was converted to jpeg in camera and then resized in gimp. That alone took me ages as i have not done any kind of pp since the darkroom days!.
The shot was handheld while i was squatting down on a frozen icy path so i was suprised it was even close to being sharp.
Once again thanks for all the comments as i would like to improve my pictures and these kind of comments help me a lot
edit,just to add the ev was -0.7 but i should have given it a bit more,- 1.0 at least. I am sitill learning about the camera and trying to see what i can do with the kit lens before buying any more lenses.This day i was trying settings on the camera to see what worked and what did not.

 

[DaiTheDragon]

Looking at the exif your shutter speed was 1/1600s. I think you could have used a slower speed then you could have increased the aperture to f8 and maybe lowered the iso to 400.

Dai