OOYCZ #5 Critique and vote thread

JAG

Ok, I was hoping that we would have gotten a lot more participating for this voting round to be able to have up to 3 votes people could select. But seeing that there are only 4 images here, you are limited to vote for only 1 image. Please CRITIQUE all images but your own and vote for which you think is the best of the bunch.

Its going to be difficult choosing, but you can do it! :thumb

If you do not have an image in this round and would like to vote, you may do so after giving a short critiques in this thread, of all images. You must critique to have your vote to be counted. I will be putting up the results of the poll by the 30th of April. After this poll closes.

Read the How to Critique thread if you haven't already. Thanks.

When critiquing, please put the number of this image at the beginning of the critique. Also if you click on the image, you can see a larger form of it.

Moderators of Dgrin may participate!

JAG

1. As I had mentioned before in pre-comments. I really loved the thought and process that was done to make this into a wonderful composition. I do like the fact that you toned down the background a little and removed the glare from the water that was behind the bird in the first image to the left. Very nicely done. I am not sure if it would have been possible, but I would have liked to see just a tad bit more image to the right of the perching rock. Maybe get that rock in there fully all the way, but what you have here is done very nicely.

2. This image is so sharp and crisp, that you can see the individual feathers quite clearly! Kudos! I like the way the lighting caught it also. I know that the blue sky would be a bit boring, but I would have liked a little more space to the right of the image for the bird to go, rather than the square crop. But I still love the way you captured the essence of this magnificent bird!

3. The bird was captured very sharply and I like that you caught it in its habitat. I was following your pre entry thread and I liked the one with the flying debris that the woodpecker was throwing out a little more interesting than this image. Mainly because the background is somewhat mundane, and the wood chips flying out gave a little life to it in my opinion. You did well on capturing this little guy though and all the images were great. I do wonder if a square crop would have made this better.

4. This is a superb capture! I am sure it is difficult to capture a humming bird wing without blur. You must have had a lot of patience to capture such a speedy critter! The color and the bokeh background are wonderful. I personally would have cloned out the purple flowers on the left of the image in post processing, as it competes with the bird for attention, plus crowds the little guy in the image. But you have done very well indeed on this! Kudos!

grandmaR

1 - I am completely in awe, both of the ability to get even one photograph, and of the processing necessary to get the three of them in one shot. The only criticism I have is that I think that the middle image is somewhat overshadowed by the other two - I don't remember if it was that way originally.
2 - wonderful color and clarity in this image. The only thing I can think of that would make it better is a little more context, but of course then we wouldn't see the bird as clearly. It's a dilemma.
3 - I do like the picture with the beak open better than the one with the beak closed - I think the bird must have been spitting out the chips, kind of like the way someone would use a blow gun with the beak opening at the end of the exhalation. The pictures were astounding, and I'm really sorry that you didn't have the ability to work on it a bit more (but I am also envious of your reason)
4 - I love this bird's tiny little feet. I agree with Joyce here that you must have been very skilled to get a photo of a hummer without a blur, but I think the picture would be better if there was at least a tiny bit of blur.

CAPTURED2H

#1--I have never put a set of shots together like this ,nice work. I would try to remove blow outs,they draw attention away from the action you captured so well.Fast shooting

#2--Well you did freeze a Red Tail in great light and wing position. A bit more room to fly into would help or maybe adding clouds to the background.Eye ,color,detail,and focus great job.

#3--A Pileated Woodpecker in the home really nice and very good detail. Eye ,open beak ,head position and color all very good. Background helps the shot also. I am not sure what the bits are ? If it was it cleaning the hole and doing a home remodel that is a good addition.

4 completely different styles hard to capture wildlife that 2 people see the same way, nice work.

Alans Grin

#2 Very well lit and nice and sharp - an excellent shot. A very minor point, but I'm not sure the crop quite works as well as it could - it feels just very slightly boxed in to me.

#3 An excellent capture - I can't fault it. In no way a criticism, just a passing note ... I prefer it flipped horizontally. Possibly a western left to right thing.

#4 Another excellent capture - I think the development could stand just a little uplift in exposure ... I loaded it into Photoshop to test this with a simple autotone (something I rarely do) and preferred it.
I am not saying Photoshop is correct, but I think there is more to get out of the development yet. The blurry bottom left also slightly distracts me. I must stress, these are very minor points - a wonderful image.

I say really well done to all who took part ... getting quality and interesting "Wildlife on demand" shots is harder than some of the other types of "on demand" challenges - IMHO!
I would have been delighted to have taken any of these three shots.

Alan.

jwear

#1 Good job on the putting them together but my eye still goes to the blown out behind the first shot.Fast shooting must be a Cannon


#3 Really a very good capture of a bird in habitat ,very sharp, the great eye and color. I still like the one with the added bits ,it adds so much to a shot.The head position in this one is just as good a pick.

#4 A great capture freezing the wing is not easy.What you hear most is -freeze the wing. Color and eye very good. Removing background is an art call and that would add to the shot. I still like the habitat it shows it was shot in the wild and not on a flash and feeder set up. That is more important to me than the :Perfect shot" That in most cases is a big PS job,set up, etc

I wish we had a few more but we do have a spectrum of 4

sapphire73

After 24 hours in transit, I'm going to keep my comments short and sweet.

1. Fun to see this blend of three shots showing the bird's movements. Great detail and sense of environment!

2. Great capture! So sharp and beautifully lit. I like the crop but could also see adding just a little more space around it.

4. Perfect capture of this hummingbird and the flowers attracting its attention. Great details here! The flowers on the left do draw my eye away from the bird a bit but that's a small thing for me.

Really hard to choose just one photo! Thank you all for joining this round!