The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Winter has been unusual this year; very little ice and snow. Usually we have lots of ice along the rivers and in snow melt pools. This is the edge of a snow melt area near the Tieton River.
Specific Feedback
I only had a 100/400 lens and no tripod available, so this was taken from more than 3’ away so does not qualify for macro/closeup and was soft on sides so had to be cropped. Probably had to do with hand holding at 1/160th. I’ve also read that when 100/400L is used with adapter, ti tends to soften the outer areas. I don’t know if that is true. I’ll keep testing. It probably is affected by having to shoot at 16.0 to try to get as much in focus as possible since I could not get directly above the ice.
Technical Details
Canon R5; 100/400 @286; 16.0; ISO 1600; 1/160th; Auto WB; AE (shutter priority).
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Jim: Really cool (pun intended). At first glance it looked like porcelain or china and even looking more carefully it’s not apparent that it’s ice. Well seen and very nicely captured. >=))>
Bill, Thank you. Some of the other photos of ice in the same area were not very blue. At first I thought I used the daylight white balance setting, but I used auto. Then it dawned on me that for a short time there was blue sky. Must have reflected. I just cropped a bit with some sharpening.
Jim, I initially thought this was a photo of a slide under a microscope with bacteria or something.
What a great image of the river. Very cool tones of blue throughout the image. What was your aperture set at? It really almost looks like an aerial image.
Yeah, it looked like a dinner plate to me, too. I don’t see that much natural ice so the patterns seem unusual and very interesting. I like the colors. When a scene is remotely short of having a normal distribution of colors, auto WB is a total crapshoot.
I agree with @Todd_Grivetti on this Jim, it really looks like an aerial image. What a great shot. I love the artistic impression of the rings of blue colors. Great vision to see, and it turned out great.
Jim, this looks like a blue version of Saturn’s rings. It’s well seen and presented. If you want to test your lens and adapter, set up something flat with lots of detail and shoot from your tripod. I doubt that using f/16 was your problem, most good lenses will got to f/22 before they start to show diffraction softening and that’s only when you’re looking at 100% on a large screen. Such a test will tell you both about adapter softening and about diffraction softening
Amazing find, Jim. The parallel lines had me fooled. I was sure it was a birdbath or something even though that didn’t go with your title. This is a really interesting image with so much to explore and I think it has much more interest after learning where you took it and that it was all formed naturally. I’d love to hear an iceologist explain this!
Great patterning and I love the variety of blues in this. You achieved a striking composition, which must have been tricky with so many possibilities. The final result is stunning. My only tiny suggestion would be to lighten the dark blob in the top left section.
The longer I look at this photo the more I think the little dark post are moving like traffic on a freeway. Is that weird or is anyone else also seeing them move?
Todd, It was F 16. Thank you. Diane, Thank you. I have slowly discovered auto WB is not very often the way to go. Ed, Thank you. Mark, Thank you. I am going to do the test. Dennis, Thank you. I have returned to the area twice and no such ices remains. Mike, Thank you. The dark blob area in upper left is a rock under the ice. Thanks for the suggestion. Youssef, I don’t see that phenomenon, but a very interesting observation. I’ve observed that in some other stills (waterfalls for example), but don’t know what causes it. I just researched it. It’s called “Illusory Motion”. It is explained by what is termed “persistence of vision”. Thanks for the comment, it lead to a learning moment for me.
