I'm not sure how I feel about the eyes in this one...what do you guys think?
Camera Model: Canon EOS 40D
Lens: EF300mm f/4L IS USM
Focal Length: 300.0mm
Aperture: f/4.0
Exposure Time: 0.0010 s (1/1000)
ISO equiv: 1000
Exposure Bias: +0.33 EV
You got some great action here. Love the pose and the water droplets. What hurts this image is the drab look of the water and the distracting branches in the BG. I have no problem at all with the eyes here. In fact, I like them. I think it would help if you saturated your bird only to help it pop a little. As it, it blends in with the rest of the photo, and I think I would like to see the bird stand out more. Good job catching the action here.
Good input from Marina. As a general rule, for me a straight on head position (down the barrel) works best when the crop is fairly tight, so the eyes are relatively bigger in the frame. I might consider cropping tighter, which would accomplish that goal, and also remove some of the extra background clutter. I certainly agree about trying to get the bird to pop a bit more too!
I like the wider crop. Had you been lucky enough to get this bird landing in open water (without the BKGR bushes...) the image would have been stronger but only 1000 times stronger. In bird photography the BKGR is often more important than the subject.....
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
Artie makes a good point about the background being so important.
Personally, I do prefer the tighter crop, and I think with some judicious toning down of the background and possibly even a little vignetting of the corners, you can further isolate the bird from the background.