Slippery sleek

[Talonted90]

Sea lions from the National Zoo:

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Talonted90 (cheeky name
I must say overall after looking at your recent uploads I do like the style of your photography - especially the colours that you get with the shots!
Have to say that I really like that first shot for the face on the seal - carries a calm and yet majestic look to it - well done

[Talonted90]

Thank you very much. I much prefer the first one but overall I like them both. I have only had my camera and have been learning it for about two months or so now but think I am progressing well. I am still trying to learn when I should be adjusting aperture and such but have been very happy with what I have taken so far. Feel free to check out what I have posted on flickr and would love to hear any CC.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29096471@N05/

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hmm strange you either have your pm feature disabled or its not been activated by the system (and it should be you have been hear nearly a year )

Anyway here are some thoughts - your compositions are not always centred (which is a good thing!) and yet you appear to only be using your centre focusing point - which in shots like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/2909647...59468/sizes/l/
is letting you down - the body in great sharpness, but the eye (the key part which I think you have also picked up on) is way out of focus. I find that if I am not shooting with the area of interest in the dead centre then its better to shift to manual focusing and get the point you want in focus - using the other auto focusing points can work - but I would not try unless you are using a high end camera body - the lower end ones use cheap sensors for the outer points.
you can also just see this in the head of hte first shot on this page - the head is only just softer than the main middle section of the body - which is sitting in the middle of the frame

After that I think another thing is to learn to use a smaller (bigger f number) aperture when shooting closeup images- this will give you that greater depth of field in the shots that is often so needed with animals.

Aside from that I think you are off to a fantastic start -

[Talonted90]

I just made sure that my PM's were still enabled which they are so that's weird. Now that you mention the centering you are absolutely right. For some reason it didn't even cross my mind to adjust that which will obviously come with more time and practice. I really appreciate the input and I will make sure to put it to good use. I took the time to update my profile some since I have been a member here for a while but only recently started posting.