Are my eyes any better?

[Tight Knot]

Hi all,

It's been a long time since my last post, and I'm still recovering from eye surgery (almost 7 weeks already - please be careful if you ever decide to have lasik. I'm recovering from the surgery to try and correct the damage it caused to my eyes). I still find it very difficult to see whether my images are perfectly sharp or not, and am putting a few up for you to critique.
Please let me know A: what you think of the overall sharpness of the images, B: Whether you think the first photo would look better rotated 90 degrees left to a landscape, C: which of the "Egret Over The Water" shots you prefer.
Thanks and looking forward to your comments.

1


Egret over the water 1


Egret over the water 2


Egret over the water 3

 

[nathfromslg]

nice images,wish you for your speedy recovery

 

[Tight Knot]

nice images,wish you for your speedy recovery

Thanks for the compliment and the good wishes nath.
Which of the images is your favourite? And why?

 

[sm4him]

Wow, hope things are going better now and your eyesight doesn't suffer long-term. I've had friends have Lasik done with absolutely spectacular results and then a couple of them who, like you, ran into complications. Only one of those ended up with more problems (long-term) than they started with.

The images:
I love the idea of the first one, but I'm just not sure it works for me at all. I would definitely try rotating it, but the bird looking out of the frame instead of into it just kinda kills it for me. I wish you'd asked that bird to look the other way.

The Egret over the water 1 is my favorite of the BIF photos; seems like good focus to me, but I have my own vision problems, so I wouldn't rely on MY opinion about that! But I like where the egret is in the frame, I like that it seems to not only be flying into the frame, but it's also almost flying up AT you from the frame, and I like the light reflections on the water in that first one the best as well.

 

[Designer]

Tight Knot; I hope your recovery goes well and quickly.

I usually don't attempt to judge the sharpness of posted pictures, but perhaps I can help with the orientation of #1.

I just tried it flipped 180. It looks kind of natural with the bird's shadow "under" him, indicating that the sun is "over" him.

Sorry about your upside-down watermark.

 

[cwcaesar]

I like Egret 1 the best; and plenty sharp enough. I personally like the first picture in landscape orientation better. I kind of like him looking out of the frame, too. To me, it adds a little interest.

 

[SamiJoSchwirtz]

Nice images.

 

[Tight Knot]

Wow, hope things are going better now and your eyesight doesn't suffer long-term. I've had friends have Lasik done with absolutely spectacular results and then a couple of them who, like you, ran into complications. Only one of those ended up with more problems (long-term) than they started with.

The images:
I love the idea of the first one, but I'm just not sure it works for me at all. I would definitely try rotating it, but the bird looking out of the frame instead of into it just kinda kills it for me. I wish you'd asked that bird to look the other way.

The Egret over the water 1 is my favorite of the BIF photos; seems like good focus to me, but I have my own vision problems, so I wouldn't rely on MY opinion about that! But I like where the egret is in the frame, I like that it seems to not only be flying into the frame, but it's also almost flying up AT you from the frame, and I like the light reflections on the water in that first one the best as well.

Hi sm4him,

Thanks for the well-wishes. I had lasik done +- 11 years ago, and enjoyed 20-20 vision for 6 1/2 years, and then the complications started. It took almost 2 1/2 years for them to diagnose me with ectasia which is keratoconus caused by lasik. I have been told by quite a few opthalmologists that they are seeing more and more patients who get ectasia from lasik after 5-7 years.

Thanks so much for the detailed C&C. I actually did ask the bird the to look into the frame, but it turns out my knowledge of the egret language is a little rusty.
My wife also prefers Egret over the water 1. I am just too biased to really tell which I prefer (after all, I like them all, lol)

 

[Tight Knot]

Tight Knot; I hope your recovery goes well and quickly.

I usually don't attempt to judge the sharpness of posted pictures, but perhaps I can help with the orientation of #1.

I just tried it flipped 180. It looks kind of natural with the bird's shadow "under" him, indicating that the sun is "over" him.

Sorry about your upside-down watermark.

View attachment 31988

Hi Designer,

Thanks for the well-wishes, and the C$C.I LOVE the 180 flipped photo, it really does bring the picture to life, and looks far more natural.

 

[Tight Knot]

I like Egret 1 the best; and plenty sharp enough. I personally like the first picture in landscape orientation better. I kind of like him looking out of the frame, too. To me, it adds a little interest.

Hi CW,

Thanks for C&C. I also like him/her looking out of the frame. I feel it creates a diagonal line from the shadow corner and up through his/her head, with the beak carrying on the line, pointing out of the top corner of the frame.

 

[Tight Knot]

Nice images.

Thanks Sami.

Is there one that you prefer over the others?

 

[KenC]

In the first image, the direction the bird is looking does not cause any problem for me, the image appears to be very sharp, and I prefer it as a vertical. However, the patterns on the water behind the shadow are distracting and make it difficult to see the shadow, and that really detracts for me. Playing around with some further processing might help.

The first egret over water is by far the best, imo. It doesn't appear to be as sharp as the first image, probably just a tiny bit of motion blur, but not enough to detract.

 

[Tight Knot]

In the first image, the direction the bird is looking does not cause any problem for me, the image appears to be very sharp, and I prefer it as a vertical. However, the patterns on the water behind the shadow are distracting and make it difficult to see the shadow, and that really detracts for me. Playing around with some further processing might help.

The first egret over water is by far the best, imo. It doesn't appear to be as sharp as the first image, probably just a tiny bit of motion blur, but not enough to detract.

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the C&C.
I hear what you're saying about the patterns being distracting, but feel it "almost"helps the eye continue out of the frame. If you look closely at the image, you will also see fish under the water and the shadows on the water.
What do you think of the flipped 180 version of the first image? It definitely does seem to be more "natural" to me.
Unfortunately, I cannot tell at all that the first egret over the water is less sharp, they all look fairly blurred to me, so i appreciate the feedback on the sharpness of the first, and the softness of the second.

 

[yeforme]

I personally like the 3rd picture the best because, you can vaguely see the details of the egrets feathers in its water reflection.