Morning Winter Sun

Sections New Your

Critique

Morning Winter Sun

#WINTER# STONECHAT#BIRD#LIGHT

Stuart Williams PRO

1 year ago

Hi All

It has been a while since I have put any images up for critique. I have always learned a lot from it.

Details of the image:

Lens: Canon 300mm F2.8 with 2 x extender

ISO: 4000 (Auto set)

f 7.1

The image is of a female Stonechat on an early morning. The ground covered in a light frost. It is shot into the light so I know some details are lost on the bird.Perhaps not the way to do things but I think it can give lovely soft backgrounds. I wanted the image to be about the soft morning light & the bird in the chilled enviroment with the sun just warming up the morning. I would be interested to see others thoughts on the image. It is currently in curation on 2% from head curators. I dont want to crop the image (much) but I would be interested to see what others thought. I find the curation process a bit odd at the moment. I started nature photography about 3 years ago & have learned so much from 1x.com. I have 250 images publidshed, but seem to no longer produce images that members voting or curators want.

All critiques appriciated .

Kind regards

Stuart.

Daniel Springgay CREW

1 year ago — Senior critic

Stuart Hi and welcome - There is quite a lot of wildlife images on 1x.com at the moment so this may affect your input. - This is my take on your wonderful image as you can see I've gone for a cop on three sides. I've also used the burn tool to darken the edges. Nik tools Tonal contrast painted on the bird only. Last Topaz AI Sharpen with noise reduction just a litte for that Pro look thank you for sharing..

Udo Dittmann PRO

1 year ago

Hi Stuart,

my suggestion: remove the noise, slightly sharpen only the bird, blur the background outside the bird and the branches and then make a square cut so that the bird sits in the center of a so-called golden spiral.

Greetings

Udo

Cicek Kiral CREW

1 year ago — Senior critic

Hi, Stuart

welcome to our forum page. Well, I just looked at your portfolio, and I have to say that you deserved to have all these images published. Your nature images are beautiful. If I have to critique this special one, I would start saying that the composition is not as strong and technical quality is not as refined as most of your images that were previously published. I like rim light, but in this image, as you said, some of the details and texture in those details are lost because of the light. It would not look very nature to me too work on this blown highlights with some editing software. Had the aperture been A bit smaller, I think the image would have had a much bigger effect on the viewer. the composition is not bad, but it looks incomplete. I wish there were just the only branch the bird was on yet it's not always possible to find something so find in nature. Blurry background looks quite fine. However, my friends pointed out above. There are so many similar compositions on 1x to this one that want to see something new. And when some repeated compositions come across the way, the judgment, I suppose gets harsher. I wish you good light...cicek

Stuart Williams PRO

1 year ago

Thank you all for your critiques. I agree with your points. I did like Daniels crop, plus the image does look better. Looking again at the image I just dont think it is good enough. It's still an image that I particulay like regarding mood & colours but the Stonechat is just not clear enough.

Thanks again. Always appriciate feedback good or bad.