Blooms & Birds

[Ron Evers]

Took these yesterday about our property.


1.

2.

3. Minolta 200/4.5

4.

5.

6.

7.

 

[reznap]

I really like #5. That lens has some serious fringe going on in the OOF areas, my 70-300 does that and when I think of what I paid for it...

#3's nice and sharp. Pretty tough to do on a manual focus lens.. I've tried with a Nikon 200mm and it's pretty hard, especially on a Rebel's tiny viewfinder.

I'd like to see you step out of your element a little Ron, try something new. You're really skilled and I bet you'd do pretty well with other subject matter.

 

[Derrel]

I really like the delicate flowers in the second shot. I like the composition and the subject matter as well. Those cherries look like they're going to be awesome! (If the birds don't take a peck out of each one of them, the way they do...)

 

[Ron Evers]

Thanks guys.

My element is nature Paul, we live in the country. What would you suggest?

 

[AlexL]

that is some nice properties you got there

 

[Stormchase]

nice shots, I like #5 as well. nice pose on the bird.

 

[Raizels]

5, 6 and 7 are my favorites. I think 5 could benefit from a tighter cropping though.

 

[BrianLy]

I like the first two focus point.

 

[benlonghair]

I like birds and flowers, so here I go.

1. Underexposed. Focus is good, but the far flowers stamen and the stem are going oof due to DoF. I'll bet half a stop would fix it. The background is kinda busy and, unfortunately, the line of shadows line up with the flowers (was this intentional?) and keeps the subject from popping. If it were opposite, it would probably work pretty well.

2. I really like this one. Nice composition, subject pops well. The busyness of the background that hurt the first helps this one imo. I think it's under exposed by 1/3-2/3 stops. Be careful upping the exposure, though, because that top flower will want to blow out.

3. Good focus, nice glint to the eye. Nice eye contact as well. The branch in the foreground over the wing hurts it. It's also pretty busy. My eye is drawn all over the photo instead of resting on the subject. No real solution to this other than getting a really fast lens or re-shooting where the bird is more separated from the background so it can blur.

4. Very nice. Too bad the back of the head is blown out, but I think it can be saved working on curves. Once that's done, you could probably stand to sharpen it a little more. I like the background in this one.

5. Nice waxwing. Like the pose as well as the branch running diagonally through the image. I'd work the curves a little on this one too to keep the hot spots on the leaves from blowing out.

6. Another great shot. Focus could be slightly sharper but, again, that might be improved with sharpening. Too bad about the cherry in the foreground.

7. I like it. Again, great pose with fruit right in front of it. Could be sharpened a little again. I think you can get better detail out of the face with some levels adjustment.

I really like waxwings. Too bad you didn't get any of the yellow tail.

 

[Ron Evers]

Wow Ben, thanks for your review. I did not ask for C&C as I posted more than two pics.

First off, I do not have PS & do not understand some of what you are suggesting for remediation but I do appreciate the effort you put forth. I develop in Lightroom & then do final adjustments to the jpeg in PhotoScape. The computer end of this digital photography is the most challenging for me.

I like birds and flowers, so here I go.

1. Underexposed. Focus is good, but the far flowers stamen and the stem are going oof due to DoF. I'll bet half a stop would fix it. The background is kinda busy and, unfortunately, the line of shadows line up with the flowers (was this intentional?) and keeps the subject from popping. If it were opposite, it would probably work pretty well.

I darkened this image because the bright background was distracting in my opinion. The vertical "shadows" are stems of other flowers.

2. I really like this one. Nice composition, subject pops well. The busyness of the background that hurt the first helps this one imo. I think it's under exposed by 1/3-2/3 stops. Be careful upping the exposure, though, because that top flower will want to blow out.

3. Good focus, nice glint to the eye. Nice eye contact as well. The branch in the foreground over the wing hurts it. It's also pretty busy. My eye is drawn all over the photo instead of resting on the subject. No real solution to this other than getting a really fast lens or re-shooting where the bird is more separated from the background so it can blur.

4. Very nice. Too bad the back of the head is blown out, but I think it can be saved working on curves. Once that's done, you could probably stand to sharpen it a little more. I like the background in this one.

This recommendation is one I do not understand as I do not know what curves are. I did use "Recovery" to tone down the bright spot on the head.

5. Nice waxwing. Like the pose as well as the branch running diagonally through the image. I'd work the curves a little on this one too to keep the hot spots on the leaves from blowing out.

6. Another great shot. Focus could be slightly sharper but, again, that might be improved with sharpening. Too bad about the cherry in the foreground.

7. I like it. Again, great pose with fruit right in front of it. Could be sharpened a little again. I think you can get better detail out of the face with some levels adjustment.

Another example of what I do not know "Levels".

I really like waxwings. Too bad you didn't get any of the yellow tail.

I hope you appreciate that composure is only achievable after the fact when shooting wildlife as you take what you can get. A lot of shots went to the trash & I even considered trashing a couple of these.

 

[benlonghair]

Hmm. Thought you were looking for C&C. My bad. But, we're all here to improve in some way.

I understand composition is only somewhat achievable in shooting wildlife. If you look at my photostream, one of the things I've been working on in the past couple weeks is composition on the fly. I especially like this one and think it shows improvement. Sometimes it's about patience more than anything.

I took the liberty to do a little editing on the last shot.

First I raised the black toward white to brighten up the photo a little. Then upped the contrast with the upper left part. Somebody actually explain what this does, I have no idea, it just works. Curves and levels are basically the same thing, or at least you get the same results.

Then I ran an unsharp mask on it to get some more definition in the eye and feathers on the breast.

And this is the finished result. It's noisy, but this was a down and dirty edit with little data to go on. If I had the original file, I could probably do more. And I'm not even very good at this.

If you shoot in RAW it's amazing what you can save.

Again, I'm sorry if I overstepped here, it's just that I'm becoming pretty passionate about birding and critiquing other people's work allows me to look at my own work more critically.

As for trashing a lot of pics, the three orioles at the top of my photo stream are three of 220 I took that afternoon. And two of the three are pretty iffy in my mind.

 

[Ron Evers]

You did not overstep at all, it's just that I would not expect C&C on so many shots.

I am having serious issues with my ISP, (Bell Pathetico) & your final pic will not load. I will try again later & it might then. However, I do see the improvement the Unsharp mask made.