Wildlife shot, critique please

[MDesigner]

My first semi-serious shot with my new rig. EOS 40D, lens used was the Canon 55-250mm (the nifty 250)

The first shot below is untouched, straight from the camera.

The second one after it is cropped and PP'd.

I cropped it using the rule of 3rds.. sharpened it a bit, brought out some of the color. Thoughts on this..? The only bummer is that I forgot I was in ISO auto mode, and it shot at ISO 400.. ugh.

 

[tom.ganc]

Wow
That's really nice picture. And after you applied all changes it looks great. Good job.

Tom

 

[Sandspur]

Very nice! And i wouldn't worry too much about the ISO 400.

I shoot there almost all the time, and have beautiful 20x30 prints from a Nikon D100 (6 MP!) that will stand up to anyone's scrutiny.

Again ... great shot!

 

[altyfc]

Yes, I don't think ISO 400 seems to matter here. You can still make out nice details.

 

[Overread]

Very nice shot - and your edited version is definatly an improvement over the original!
And don't worry about ISO400- for wildlife this is not a bad place to be as you never know when some action might suddenly occur, though in this case ISO 200 would be as low as I would have gone.

 

[MDesigner]

You know, I was thinking. Maybe the crop isn't so great. The neck is a very interesting eye line in the original photo..and in the cropped version, the right edge of the neck is cut off. I feel like I've removed an interesting eye line from the photo.

 

[KabeXTi]

Very nice picture. That is the lens I am really debating on getting.

 

[MDesigner]

It's a great lens, especially for the price. The IS feature is great! Great for wildlife & sports.. see, when I half pressed the shutter button, freeze rays shot out of the lens and froze the swan exactly where it was..then I took the shot. (Just making fun of a common misconception about IS). Seriously though, for doing handheld shots with telephoto, IS is great. I don't regret my decision of going for the 55-250mm over the 70-200mm f/4L. The IS is majorly important to me.