for critique

petert

petert

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pete
Edit My Images
Yes
Just thought I'd put a couple of pics up for your comments, all unedited

064_zpsehiccphv.jpg
 
Perhaps you can tell us what you think of them first Pete? :whistle:

It's much easier to give a constructive critique if you know what the standpoint of the shooter is. Do you think they are perfect and should be on your wall, or do you have your own idea of their potential short-comings?
 
FourRingCircus said:
Perhaps you can tell us what you think of them first Pete? :whistle:

It's much easier to give a constructive critique if you know what the standpoint of the shooter is. Do you think they are perfect and should be on your wall, or do you have your own idea of their potential short-comings?
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Check post 64 in your what do you want thread ,the one you liked
 
Den pays much mre attention to 'who' the poster is than I do. I hadn't put two and two together and hadn't even noticed whose post I'd linked in another thread was the OP here.

petert said:
Wildlife photography is my passion but I'm limited with time and with variety even though I live in the country, I don't bother with posting them as I feel quite capable of judgment myself, when I feel I get a more interesting photo then I might but it is boring to see the same kinds of photos all the time. Nothing wrong with truth but it depends how it's put.
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Pete said he was quite capable of self-judgement, so my opening gambit still stands. Over to you Pete! ;)
 
It gets confusing to us "oldies" if you put more than one image up for "Critique" Pete

If we take Composition first ……. just that, nothing else

the main things I see at first glance are chopped off parts of the bird, (tails), images #1 and #2 - an unattractive blob in the sky on #3 as well as the post behind the bird - and man made structures which you either have a fetish for or not, some on here have that fetish:)
Because of these I find it difficult to look further into the image

I'm also not sure what those vertical lines in the bg are in #1 - was it raining ? .. looks like it was raining from the birds tail

An alternative view - many on here will find them natural, (it rains, the back garden is a nature reserve, it's where they live - fences are never straight), they are as they should be, (that's real life! - birds land on fences - get over it), and that they are perfectly marvellous, (chopped off tails just add that different "look" - just grab the shot, don't think about it, you'll loose your inspiration) - that UFO in the sky just adds interest:)

……. who do you want to listen to?

(IHVHO)
 
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Interesting to see the raindrop exploding near the pigeons foot :)

The head / eye look a little soft as the focus is more on its rear end. Not easy to pick out the head on a moving / flapping subject.

I normally use single point focus and move the point up a step or 2 if I am photographing perched birds - preparation can help. This would also help avoid cropping off part of the tail.
 
FourRingCircus said:
Perhaps you can tell us what you think of them first Pete? :whistle:

It's much easier to give a constructive critique if you know what the standpoint of the shooter is. Do you think they are perfect and should be on your wall, or do you have your own idea of their potential short-comings?
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Not bad I would say, they weren't planned, don't like the fences but wasn't a lot I could do, it was wet and quite dark, nothing special about the subjects though I did like the way the wood pigeon was having a shower
 
FourRingCircus said:
Den pays much mre attention to 'who' the poster is than I do. I hadn't put two and two together and hadn't even noticed whose post I'd linked in another thread was the OP here.



Pete said he was quite capable of self-judgement, so my opening gambit still stands. Over to you Pete! ;)
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Thought I'd throw myself to the lions :-D
 
Dave Semmens said:
Interesting to see the raindrop exploding near the pigeons foot :)

The head / eye look a little soft as the focus is more on its rear end. Not easy to pick out the head on a moving / flapping subject.

I normally use single point focus and move the point up a step or 2 if I am photographing perched birds - preparation can help. This would also help avoid cropping off part of the tail.
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I had it on all.focus points:-o
 
as they stand i would bin pics 1 and 3 ... pic two is a little interesting..

what I dont understand is why you would post unedited pictures? edit and repost then I might think different to the other two..

PS nothing at all clever about unedited pics.. just shows a complete lack of imagination by the photogrpaher IMHO :)
 
Don't have any software to edit with at the moment
 
Was thinking of getting lightroom, will anyone do? just need the basics
 
My take on these shots

#1 - I like the pose, something a little different to the norm, but the wonky horizon/fence and chopped off tail are a bit of a turn off to me

#2 - I like the behaviour caught on this one, again not the usual posed bird shot, but again chopped off tails aren't great

#3 - Good effort catching the bird in flight, i still struggle catching garden birds in flight, just a shame the background wasn't cleaner as the ball on the top of the fence post is right in the way, a few inches to the right and that would be a great shot

Overall they do all look a little soft though, not sure if this is missed focus or just the lack of editing/sharpening
 
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As I say the original has no chopped tail not sure how that's happened? Jpegs
I should have used single focus point to
 
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I thought they were all soft/blurred.

#1 shot at 1/40th sec may have something to do with it as f5.6 should have given enough depth of field.
#2 again looks soft, although shot at 1/500th should have been fine. Fence looks in focus, the birds don't. I like the showing of birds behaviour.
#3 a tiny bit of the fence is in focus, the rest is blurred. even faster shutter speed this time 1/1250
 
I'd say any version of Lightroom should do, and then get shooting in RAW, it's amazing how much more detail you can pull out of shots taken in RAW as opposed to Jpegs

About 90% of my processing is done soley in LR, the rest in Photoshop
 
Download fastone it's free & gives you a fair amount of options included clone/healing, straighting, colours, curves ect, then move up to LR
 
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Byker28i said:
I thought they were all soft/blurred.

#1 shot at 1/40th sec may have something to do with it as f5.6 should have given enough depth of field.
#2 again looks soft, although shot at 1/500th should have been fine. Fence looks in focus, the birds don't. I like the showing of birds behaviour.
#3 a tiny bit of the fence is in focus, the rest is blurred. even faster shutter speed this time 1/1250
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These were all seen and quickly grab the camera so didn't get time to get all the settings right that's why I was quite pleased they come out at all.
 
Digisatman said:
Download fastone it's free & gives you a fair amount of options included clone/healing, straighting, colours, curves ect, then move up to LR
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I'd go for lightroom straight away. The processing is just a part of it. The cataloguing., organising, finding of images is superb, the print module for me is essential
 
Thanks guys I must get out the habit of jpeg
 
Byker28i said:
I'd go for lightroom straight away. The processing is just a part of it. The cataloguing., organising, finding of images is superb, the print module for me is essential
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Will definitely go lightroom
 
petert said:
These were all seen and quickly grab the camera so didn't get time to get all the settings right that's why I was quite pleased they come out at all.
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Fair enough - we've all done that, just the last two were quite high shutter speeds with a reasonable depth of field from the f number. Even at 20 feet from the subject you should have had about 6 inches so its unusual they seem so soft.
 
Byker28i said:
Fair enough - we've all done that, just the last two were quite high shutter speeds with a reasonable depth of field from the f number. Even at 20 feet from the subject you should have had about 6 inches so its unusual they seem so soft.
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Could be the lens, 70 300 tamron vc
 
Whats the difference with the student and teacher versions?
 
OK right, just got one lightroom 4 £30
 
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so long as it supports your camera of course - adobe are up to version 6 now so there's a risk of 4 not supporting all new models - lR4 for example doesnt support the 70D (which forced me to go to LR5 when I upgraded)

on the picture crit 1 had the potential to be a great shot, and the rain is very atmospheric, but the eye doesn't appear quite sharp - it looks as though the focus has locked onto the tail

2 good behavioural capture but as mentioned by various others the chopped of tails detract

and 3 nice flight capture but slightly marred by the background - a few ms later would have not had the fence finial imeadiately behind the bird (burst is your friend for these shots - also the weird ufo in the top right quadrant wants cloning out
 
I have d700 and 7100 so hopefully? If not I'll have to sell it and start again:-(
 
big soft moose said:
on the picture crit 1 had the potential to be a great shot, and the rain is very atmospheric,

t
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image #1

A serious question - how do you see this as having potential to be a "great shot"

can you explain your logic?
 
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BillN_33 said:
image #1

A serious question - how do you see this as having potential to be a "great shot"

can you explain your logic?
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Well 'great shot' is a subjective thing - its never going to be the front page of bird watching magazine - but as shots of wood pigeons go it has the potential to be quite a good one its not badly composed or exposed, the rain lends a nice touch , the only thing really wrong with it is that eye isn't sharp

IMO some posters in this section sometimes forget that this site is about photography, not bird watching, so the fact that the subject is relatively common is irrelevant to the crit being given, and it wouldn't be a better shot per se if it was a white tailed sea eagle (for example) sat on a branch in the rain
 
I wished it was an eagle, variety is a bit poor but then you have to make do with whats available, these were shot in London, my mum gets.more birds in the garden there than I do in the country, all I get in mine this is the odd wood pigeon, collard doves and starlings
 
big soft moose said:
Well 'great shot' is a subjective thing - its never going to be the front page of bird watching magazine - but as shots of wood pigeons go it has the potential to be quite a good one its not badly composed or exposed, the rain lends a nice touch , the only thing really wrong with it is that eye isn't sharp
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Thanks, interesting

(I am really having trouble understanding comments like that)

big soft moose said:
IMO some posters in this section sometimes forget that this site is about photography, not bird watching,
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I disagree and think that the reverse is true, by a factor of 10+ to one, maybe more
 
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