Puffin from the ST Louis zoo...first time posting on here!

[shortchaz]

Was browsing the site and decided I better join and get some tips since I've been out of the game for awhile!
I have my opinions of this shot but I was curious what others saw

and yes it is a pretty heavy crop

 

[Judobreaker]

It's a bit darkish, could use some extra light.
The image is pretty sharp though which is good, especially for a heavy crop.

You might want to reconsider your crop though, add some space to the left.
You've probably tried to get it at about two thirds of the image according to 'da rulez'.
This is definitely not a bad thing, getting used to the rule of thirds is a very important thing to learn. However, your subject is now swimming away from the center instead of towards it.
The composition will probably work a lot better if you get the bird on the right side of your image (add water to the left side).

All in all, not a too bad shot but definitely room for some improvement.
Keep it up.

 

[shortchaz]

Partially the rule...but also wanted the water splash in the pic.

It came from this pic...

 

[Judobreaker]

Ah yeah, I can see the problem there.
It's just not possible to make the kind of crop I had in mind. ^^
I think I'd have included the splash too if possible by the way, it's nice. I'd just want a bit more water on the left side.
Oh well, you can't have everything at once, it wouldn't be fun if you could.

 

[fokker]

There is some ghosting present, evidently you used the on-board flash with a slow sync speed so you effectively have two exposures of the bird going on, one created by the flash, and the other from ambient light over a longer time which has caused some blur.

 

[shortchaz]

Yeah, it was indoors and nothing decent was coming out without the flash. Still just playing with the camera to see what works.

Thanks for the tips so far!