The arctic snow bunting
Well, might as well do my first post here on the forum. I am currently in the Canadian High Arctic, and this is the only wildlife so far!
I did not have my E3 with me, so this was shot with the Olympus E1 + ZD150/2. Cropped quite a bit and sharpened. f4 & 1/1600
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Last edited by Charles Daigle; 06-19-2010 at 10:01 PM.
Hi Charles So glad to have you !!
For critiquing we only post one image at a time and can re post same to make changes, please remove one of the two and will comment !!! You should be finding lots of birds up there and in breeding plumage !!!!
Thanks, and DONE! It's the high arctic (Resolute Bay, Nunavut), so there's isn't much yet!Originally Posted by Alfred Forns
Hope they will show up in numbers and the mosquitoes stay away :)
Wished you could have cleared the oof rock in the foreground, normally those elements will take away from the image, can get a little higher and clear. For the bird best to place on the left side of frame rather than on the right looking out of the frame .. not a fast rule but just looks better !!
Those little guys are tough and lots of focal length is needed for fill frame, would go tighter but its a crop already !! Check histogram when making image, this might be a bit underexposed and noise will creep in ! Would brighten some !! Looking forward to the next one .... good luck with the arrivals !!!
Welcome Charles! :D Looking forward to seeing more wildlife from the Arctic.
Well, I think this place is going to improve my techniques greatly! Thanks Alfred, I do have an extremely bright monitor, and probably the reason for the "underexposure". I've never thought about cropping/composing according to the direction in which the birds is looking. It does make sense though! Thanks for that.
I did not have my longer lens with me, so looks like a reason to go out again!
I've upped the exposure a little here, and cropped a little differently. Better/worst?
Better on both counts Charles Position wise its generally better having a small bird in frame toward one of the corners .. and most of the space should be in front giving him room to look into the frame. Also as mentioned the oof front elements are image killers.
I would not say there are any rules just guidelines which for the most part will make you a bette picture. At times you can have a bird looking out of the frame and would be just right ... not often :)
Hi Charles - big warm welcome to BPN - do not hesitate to jump right in and leave comments on other peoples images - no better or faster way to improve your own - all we ask is that you say what it is you like or dont like about the image.
Great advice from AL above - also be sure to check out the educational resources forum - lots of great info in there.
Looking forward to seeing more ;)
Hi Charles, I also offer a warm welcome. I feel your repost is an improvement and Al's comments were right on.
One problem is the bird is very small in the image due to your lenses reach. It diminishes the impact of the subject and generally large crops can hurt the subjects details.
As Al stated, generally you want more room in front of the subject than the rear so the subject has a space to go into. Alot more appealing visually.
Finally, compositionally I feel there is way too much space above the bird. Kind of a catch 22 that if you crop most of the image it could be negatively effected in other areas...
Lance, thanks so much for the warm welcome. I am looking forward to the summer here in the arctic. I am already starting to see some arctic lilies! Should make for some interesting macro's. Something I will never get to photograph again!
Dave, thanks as well. I am finding this forum quite useful so far. The people are critical about the images, which is good, but are also friendly about it. Some other forums are either too soft, and some are too harsh. This one seems to be right in the middle! I realize the length of the lens is limiting my reach. The long lens is the problem with my current setup. I do have the 50-200mm 2.8/3.5, but even that combined with the EC14 or EC20 isn't long enough, not to mention slow. The 150/2 + EC20 would give me a 300/4, but the AF is abysmal, and unacceptable.
I do have an old Tamron SP 300/2.8, but it is manual focus. I'll probably break it out soon, see what it can do!
Hi Charles, I believe one should be truthful in how they feel about an image but there is no need to be harsh,just constructive. I don't like sugar coated comments because the maker is not learning anything so therefore why comment in the first place. I get a great deal of satisfaction when someone new starts posting with inexperience and over time I can see a marked improvement in their work. Thats when I feel I'm doing something useful.
If you check alot of previous posts along with the comments you should soon get a feel for what are common flaws and what is looked at positively......
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