Moorhen Chick

[WIlliam Maroldo]

SonyA700~Sony70-400G@400mm~Sony HVL-F56Am for fill-flash~ISO640~F7.1~1/500sec~manual exposure~hand held~Brazos Bend State Park, Texas~8-9-09 ~CS4
comments and critique welcomed. regards~Bill

[Alfred Forns]

Got to love that baby Might just tone down the green a bit but great looking image. Bird is razor sharp, good head angle and good detail in the blacks !!! Excellent image !!!!

[Harshad Barve]

lovely sharp image , agreed with Alfred here
TFS

[Mike Cameron]

Cute chick! You've captured great sharpness and detail; I like the duckweed background as well. Toning down the green is probably more realistic, but it isn't bad to my eye.

Mike

[Joerg Rockenberger]

Awesome. Wish you had the opportunity to get lower. JR

[Tony Whitehead]

Love the detail, exposure, comp and textures. The duckweed adds an interesting element. Well done, Bill.

[Stu Bowie]

Excellent work on the blacks Bill, and just love those colours on the head. I like the surrounding duckweed, and would maybe take a bit off the bottom.

[Richard Lovison]

I like the image as presented. The placement of the bird, vibrant colors, sharpness and detail in the blacks all work for me. Well done.

[Kiran Poonacha]

beautiful image this, great expo and details. the setting looks great.. congrats...

[Brian Zwiebel]

William, This is fantastic for all the reasons listed above. The bird looks great, good blacks, nice color, love the duck weed and open bill! If the duckweed pattern continues around the bird this might make a very interesting shot presented with the bird smaller in the frame.

Good Shooting!

BZ

[Krijn Trimbos]

Very nice shot, with a good setting and calling pose. If a situation like this presents itself again I would try for a lower angle would have created a calmer BG. The HA is ok, but I could also do with one a little more parallel to the camera. In this case maybe getting a bit more detail out of the eye in the shadow would be good I think, also a bit of gaussian blur on the BG would benefit the photo IMHO. In any case I like it a lot, great job!

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Appreciate the critique and observations! About the viewing angle. Always thought low viewing angles were a good idea for the reasons Krijn sited, and I was well aware of this when taking this picture. I have a new acronym:ALAP. (As low as possible), and I would have to say that was the case here. I was on a bank, I don't know, 6 inches above the water surface, held the camera a few inches above that, tiny 3 inch long bird maybe 6ft way. ALAP.
Gaussain blur on BG another good idea, but since here we would need essentially a "gradient blur"; in other words the blur increasing with distance, it is more difficult than just bluring a background. Although possible, I would have to be more convinced it was necessary.
Thanks everyone for looking! regards~Bill

[Krijn Trimbos]

Hi William,

Thanks for your feedback. It seems you were pretty low already as you have pointed out. Could you have gotten any lower with waders, shooting from waterlevel???

The way I see it there is already a gradient to your BG. If loosing this gradient is your concern, doing some Gaussian blur/noise reduction, as long as it is done carefully and selectively and continuously troughout the whole BG, wouldn't pose too much of problem I think.

I don't want to go as far as convincing you to blur the BG a bit more. I am not out to change photographers views about their pictures, just pointing out what I would be bothered with if this were mine. And what I would do to improve it afterwards.


Repectfully,

Krijn

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Hi Krijn: I like your idea of what I might do when confronting the situation again, and indeed I am always looking ahead, and not overly concerned about how I can make an existing image better.
However, as far as wading or getting into the water, not only is it prohibited at this state park, but even if it wasn't, I wouldn't. I am not kidding: a 12 foot female gator with a bad attitude was cruising around guarding her nest maybe a dozen yards away. Although numerous other of her kind are often not too far away, the biggest obstacle is water that is only a few feet deep with a bottom with at least 1-2feet of muck. I really believe, in this situation, I was as low as I could go.
As far as blurring the background, now that you bring this up, generally I would select (or mask) what I didn't want to blur. This is often not too difficult, especially if the area is not too complicated. However, this is not the case with the fine feathers of this chick, and it might be pretty simple for you, but not for me. Appreciate your input! regards~Bill

[Krijn Trimbos]

Hi Krijn: I like your idea of what I might do when confronting the situation again, and indeed I am always looking ahead, and not overly concerned about how I can make an existing image better.
However, as far as wading or getting into the water, not only is it prohibited at this state park, but even if it wasn't, I wouldn't. I am not kidding: a 12 foot female gator with a bad attitude was cruising around guarding her nest maybe a dozen yards away. Although numerous other of her kind are often not too far away, the biggest obstacle is water that is only a few feet deep with a bottom with at least 1-2feet of muck. I really believe, in this situation, I was as low as I could go.
As far as blurring the background, now that you bring this up, generally I would select (or mask) what I didn't want to blur. This is often not too difficult, especially if the area is not too complicated. However, this is not the case with the fine feathers of this chick, and it might be pretty simple for you, but not for me. Appreciate your input! regards~Bill

Hahahaha :D darn croks and gators! Yeah I forgot about that, we don't get them here so getting low and wet isn't as much of a problem in The Netherlands.

I definitely don't think blurring the BG in this case (with the chick feathers everywhere) would be easy, but with this shot I would give it a try cause it is so very nice!!!

Apprieciate your feedback!

Cheers,

Krijn