Jacana on lotus leaves

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Camera	Canon EOS 7D
Exposure	0.002 sec (1/640)
Aperture	f/9.0
Focal Length	400 mm
ISO Speed	400
Exposure Bias	0 EV

Jacana by docsanjeev, on Flickr

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Sanjeev,

I really like this picture be interesting to see another crop with more on the sides, a pano type crop (play with the crop if you have the room). This would make the image stronger IMO by showing the struggle of walking through all the water lillies. Photography bonus points for the raised foot, this is very original and I have never seen it from this perspective. Nice job with original work and story telling - I am there - well done.

The techs are solid too, like the f/9, 1/640 with a nice solid ISO speed of 400.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Thank you Jeff for your kind words. I will play with the crop and see what i can do. It was amazing to see this bird trying to wade through and walk on the large leaves looking for its prey! Regards
Sanjeev

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Sanjeev, good points by Jeff and I too love the raised foot. The issue I would consider in this image is the busy background. It really competes for attention with all the light and dark areas of the lily pads and water. One fact that we all need to consider when making photographs is that the camera does not discriminate like the eye and brain do. When the eye looks at this scene, the brain says "cool bird!" and that is what we see. The camera, on the other hand, sees everything in front of it - for better or worse - and it gives equal importance to the things that we are not interested in seeing. This is the case with this image, where you have a nice image of the bird but the background is equally worthy of attention from the eye. Imagine this image captured on still water with nothing in the bg! The eye of the bird is quite dark, I would suggest lightening it and adding a catchlight.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Thank you Kerry for your observations and comments. You have a point reg the busy BG. This was the lowest I could get for the shot. I was on the banks of the lake and there was a steep drop, hence the angle. I will try and add a catch light.RegardsSanjeev