Here, I'll show you how. Do it like this...

[Lisa Flory]

Canon 30D
Canon 75-300mm

1/1000
F5.6
ISO 100
Exposure -0.67
220mm
no flash

Don't let the soft fluffy feathers fool you! These babies are tough to get photos of! It's another two person job. Mom would try to distract the parents while I tried to photograph. It didn't take long for the parents to catch on. You got to be quick. and yes, one day the cob did have one of my flip flops as a souvenior for a half hour. But I made it back to the car! lol These are 'tame' swans that I photographed for a year, and this is when the babies were first trying to figure out getting food for themselves.

Comments and critiques would be awesome and appreciated!

[Nonda Surratt]

Awahhh How cute Lisa! To me the whites look good and so does the water. The one little guys face maybe could be a bit brighter?
Nice and sharp and the water drops off the foot are a nice touch!
They seem cramped, crop a bit close maybe? And wish for just a bit lower angle.

Cute, cute, cute image!!!

[Katie Rupp]

Lisa, I'll ditto what Nonda said. Just too cute and look at the size of those feet!!

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

Me too - as above!

[Julie Kenward]

Wonderful image but I'm going to have to give you five demerits for that bad head angle on the bird to the left. JUST KIDDING! :D:D:D

[Cheryl Flory]

LOL Julie. LOL.
But then again, perhaps the one on the left does have great eye contact--just from beneath the water. perhaps it is camera shy.

Both Lisa and I have a tendency to crop tight. we tend to be more interested in the subject than the surrounding area, and often crop too close. I can see what all the comments mean about being too tight. wonder what Lisa thinks about it.

but that head angle--perhaps the chief HAP don't visit this forum too often....

[Julie Kenward]

Cheryl, everyone has a subjective view on cropping an image. One thing to remember is that if you want the focus to only be on the one subject, then get in there really close and crop away. In this case, you might have isolated one bird or the other and cropped just the face (or feet!) and made that the entire image. But, when the main focus is between two objects in the image (two birds or two flowers or the foreground and background of a landscape) then leave some room for the eye to make that correlation. Tell the story with what you leave in and NOT what you take out. In this case, the bird on the right looks like he's moving towards the bottom corner of the water but in the image he has no room left to go there. Let him have a little space to head into (and take away some of what's behind him) but still keep him large enough in the image that he is the prominent feature.

Now, if you wanted the water drops on his head (0r the feet!) to be the main focus, then a really REALLY tight crop would work well. Make sense?

[Lance Peters]

Cute :) Nice advice julie (Filed away in the brain) :)

[Amy DeStefanis]

Wonderful image but I'm going to have to give you five demerits for that bad head angle on the bird to the left. JUST KIDDING! :D:D:D

Hey - that's the technical out for the Head Angle Police.... can't be a bad angle if it's not there!!!!

:)

Very nice image - but I agree with others' comments that it would have been nice for the camera to be lower to the ground. But I'm sure these guys weren't exactly waiting around for you to get your "ducks in a row".... (I know, I know, they're swans - but I couldn't resist)

Amy D.

[Alfred Forns]

I agree on having a little separation between the chicks but what a cute image !!!! Angle wise it does not bother me at all, I think its one that can look good from any any angle !!!!




.........Hey - that's the technical out for the Head Angle Police.... can't be a bad angle if it's not there!!!! Amy .... I have a polarizer (in PS) and can see what is going on UW :D:D:D:)

[Julie Kenward]

You tell 'em, Al!!! :D:):D

We sure have a good time here in ETL, don't we???