The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
The Sandhill Cranes were quite a distance away, and I did not expect to see them as they had not been here in past years. The location is a cranberry bog in NJ, near my home. The image is cropped and has some editing. This is my first submission, and I am very happy to get your feedback. I consider myself an intermediate level photographer - I have some knowledge but am not always sure what to do with it. Thanks very much!
Specific Feedback
I like the cranes on either side of the small pine tree. I’m not sure about the background, and wondered if I should crop it further.
Technical Details
600mm
iso 800
f 6.3
1/1250
taken 5pm in February in NJ
Critique Template
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Hi Shannon and welcome to NPN and the Avian gallery. A nice environmental look at the cranes and some nice light. I like the tree separating the cranes as well. The crop looks okay or maybe a slight crop from the left. The tonal values between the cranes and the background seem similar and you might try to subdue the background so the cranes pop more. I’m envious you get to see the cranes close to home.
Hi Shannon. Welcome to NPN and the Avian forum. Sandhill Cranes can be so frustrating. At least one of a pair always seems to have it’s head in the grass or be looking the wrong way. This does make a nice environmental and behavior image. I don’t know where you ended up with your crop, but most of us are posting our images at about 2000 pixels on the long side these days (I use 2048 simply because that’s what my camera club wants). The days of 800 pixels are thankfully long gone. Your cranes look nice and sharp at this scale and 5 pm in February should have given you some nice evening light which this image appears to have. Sometimes that evening light gets a bit too much and I think you could back off on the saturation just a hair on this image as it really pumped up the greens in the tree to the point where they start pulling my eye a bit. There’s another tree in the background directly behind the main one that tends to pull my eye that way as well, and I think cropping from the top to eliminate those yellow-green spots from it helps make the background simpler.
Welcome again and I look forward to seeing much more of your work and reading your comments on other people’s efforts.
