Bugs !

[kaivalagi]

to my eye the composition is a little off on most of those... with things being a little too central in the frame, and in this one, i think the bird should be the other side, so it's looking across the length of the shot...

...snip...


EDIT: this one could probably be improved with cropping most of the right hand side off (end edit)

again, only my opinion, and trust me, I'm a lot worse when i'm looking at my own photo's. I'll look through the camera, and delete at least half because of composition, exposure or blur, then i'll get them on the comp, delete a few more,

by the time i'm done i'm lucky if i've got 10 out of every 500 taken.

and if I could afford one then i'd def be a canon man, at the moment i've only got a nikon d40. but i'd love a decent canon, purely because I love their high end lenses. some of the best lenses on the market I think. with the camera itself, I don't see a real difference between nikon or canon, but with lenses, once you get past all the standard stuff, canon has the best. theres a couple of pics in my "pictures from yesterday" thread somewhere under this one. a leopard, meerkat, etc.

Yeah, I was in a rush this morning cropping and uploading before I headed out...that pic you picked was far from my favourite as it isn't sharp enough and it was taken at full zoom (500mm) using a monopod for the first time....although I love the Great Crested Grebe. You've been rather nice about them...I don't think much of them to be honest but thought it's worth uploading them so I can see any improvements when I upload new snaps

I've re-cropped from the original and uploaded it again (click for big pic):



I hope as I get more time to spend taking pics and getting used to the lens, and have more wildlife to shoot, the pics will improve dramatically...I think on that day I only managed to take about 30 shots in all and the ones uploaded were the better of a bad bunch. I was with wifey and son so only had at most 30 minutes of me time, and even then it was raining on and off during that time . It was the first time out with my new lens properly too...and I didn't like that rain...£700 lens getting rained on wasn't my idea of fun

I know, lots of excuses but I am learning the ways of the force still Obi-wan

edit: Sorry Gunngee, I'll stop posting any of my shots on YOUR thread...I should really start my own....I hope this has been as useful to you as it has for me though...and Chris, thanks for the feedback, I may ask on your critiquing services again when I have a new batch of photos from an outing

Any worthwhile books/sites/mags to pick up on the finer points of photography?

 

[chrisbassist]

to be honest i'm not sure of the best places to learn more...

my learning has been mostly from experience.taking lots of pics, finding finding a batch of the same subject, and looking at which i prefer. slowly learning what makes a good picture (at least in my eyes)

I've read a few photography magazines, but never had a subscription or anything, and were only bought if they had an article that interested me, like an issue devoted to low light photography (I like music so live bands is a regular subject) as for books and stuff, I've not read any directly related to photography, but mainly got into it as a way to take my own "stock" for graphic design. all these things are related, anything that ends with a 2d image is related, so don't restrict yourself to looking for photo stuff, articles on design will help too.

but my main tip would be if you have 2 images of the same subject, and you prefer one over the other, look at them both and work out WHY before you delete the worse one. then apply that next time...

 

[Big_eyes]

Had a quick go at seeing how well I could photograph a wasp last summer. I'd just rescued him from the water in our gutter drain, you can see a blob of water on its head.

 

[Gunngee]

The link works fine, a nice variety of pics there, where did you spy those owls...cool stuff.

Sorry, I've been away for a couple of days. Those owls were at a bird sanctuary. They were actually the young ones. The adults have been returning every year to nest so it's pretty cool. I love walking around there, you never know what you are going to see. There's everything there from cranes, herons, tons of ducks, hawks, eagles and various species of owls. I saw a beautiful barn owl once but couldn't get a shot of it.