Greylag Goose

[David Cowling]

This is my first post in this section. Have been posting my avian images onto Eager to Learn where I have received some gentle and very helpful critique. I am anticipating that things may be a little rougher here! The goose was alighting onto a river. C&C very welcome.

Canon 7D. 100-400 L. 1/1000 @ f 5.6. ISO 400.
RAW developed in ACR and CS6.

[Randy Stout]

David:

Excellent light,nice angle in the frame, feet show well, the horizontal lines in the water give the sense of speed/movement. Good colors in bg as well, the browns play well with the bird.

Nice composition as well.

The bird isn't quite critically sharp on the head, could stand a bit more sharpening. There also may have been some motion blur at this shutter speed. Perhaps the focus point wasn't on the head, as some other areas appear a bit sharper.

In a perfect world, would wish for the near wing to be a bit more open.

Looking forward to more. You certainly are ready for the Avian board. Eager to Learn is an excellent learning experience.

Cheers

Randy

[arash_hazeghi]

Ditto Randy's comments. love the landing pose and light but the IQ lacks, details look coarse and lacking.

TFS

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Glad to have you over here David!

Looks like you picked a slow time to head over, meaning that responses will be few until the holiday break is over.

I'll third all of Randy's comments. In general, it would be best to get the critical focus on the head, but you could definitely sharpen this one just a tad to help improve it.

Not sure if you have taken a look at Doug Brown's AF guide for the Canon 7D. It's from when the camera came out years ago, but I believe that it still holds quite well!

http://www.deepgreenphotography.com/...-new-canon-7d/

Miguel

[Daniel Cadieux]

Welcome to the avian board David. I like the pose and colours. As mentioned the details seem a bit lost, perhaps due to the reasons mentioned, and / or also a big crop. Happy New Year, and looking forward to more from you here :-)

[Robert Kimbrell]

Good first post here David, There is a lot to like here, You got excellent advice above, keep posting.

[David Cowling]

Thanks to everybody for critiquing my first post.

Robert; thank you.

Daniel; you are right about the IQ. it is quite a big crop and has suffered because of this. Trouble is that the birds won't fly close enough to me.

Miguel; thanks for the link. It turns out that my camera was set up to exactly these settings from info I got elsewhere on the web.

Arash; same comment as Daniel on IQ. I have redone the processing using DPP using your guide and think that it is a little better for it but is still suffering from too large a crop.

Randy; the focus point was probably not on the head. I have trouble enough keeping focus on the BIRD, how you guys manage to focus on the eye amazes me!