Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: Christoph C. Feldhaim on March 14, 2014, 05:11:58 pm

Title: Meet The Crow !
Post by: Christoph C. Feldhaim on March 14, 2014, 05:11:58 pm

A crow from todays stroll in the park
Cheers
~Chris

EDIT: Images updated with better cropping enabled ;)

Meet The Crow No.1 (http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7156/13154320074_2b33d94750_c.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/feldhaim/13154320074/) Meet The Crow No.2 (http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3767/13154035375_00e0942cff_c.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/feldhaim/13154035375/in/photostream/) Meet The Crow No.3 (http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2485/13154163323_3f96db8b8a_c.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/feldhaim/13154163323/in/photostream/) Meet The Crow No.4 (http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2151/13154164063_1a7e7cde66_c.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/feldhaim/13154164063/in/photostream/)

Title: Re: Meet The Crow !
Post by: wolfnowl on March 16, 2014, 12:44:02 am

Incredibly intelligent animals!

Nice shots, too!!  :)

Mike.

Title: Re: Meet The Crow !
Post by: summernz on March 16, 2014, 03:05:24 am

Neat set of images. You express the crows character beautifully.

Title: Re: Meet The Crow !
Post by: Christoph C. Feldhaim on March 16, 2014, 03:17:44 am

Thanks to both, for the nice words.

This was a stalking job with the crows being terribly aware of my presence.
I was moving slowly like a snail all the time to not scare them away.

I used flash to add a little light to the foreground, but most of the time they were too far away to be in reach.
I wished to have had an additional tele thingy for the flash.

With my tele being a 300 mm equivalent I still had to crop, because I couldn't get nearer.

After all it was a helluva fun.

Cheers
~Chris

Title: Re: Meet The Crow !
Post by: Jagatai on March 16, 2014, 07:15:58 am

I like 2 and 3 best.  The soft white background on 2 contrasts well with the feathers and really brings out the texture.  On the other hand, the out of focus texture of the background in 3 feels a bit like a mirror of the feather textures.  This looks like a series that would really be worth pursuing much further.  The personality of the birds is really appealing.

Title: Re: Meet The Crow !
Post by: sdwilsonsct on March 16, 2014, 09:14:20 am

These have many of the great qualities of your zoo series. For some reason, however, I find myself wanting to see the whole animal in this case.

Title: Re: Meet The Crow !
Post by: Christoph C. Feldhaim on March 16, 2014, 09:55:38 am

The cropping was a tough decision.
I somehow felt doubt about cutting off a part of the bird,
but I wanted the head and especially the eye not being at the border of the image and
I also wanted a zoom factor sufficient to keep it a portrait-like image.
So I had to crop.

Cheers
~Chris

EDIT: Just for educational purposes I added two alternate cropping solutions - judge for yourself ! - ~Chris

Title: Re: Meet The Crow !
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on March 16, 2014, 12:53:10 pm

A very nice set, Chris. And I think your original portrait cropping is the best.

Title: Re: Meet The Crow !
Post by: Jagatai on March 16, 2014, 02:07:57 pm

I agree.  I like the tighter cropping.

Title: Re: Meet The Crow !
Post by: sdwilsonsct on March 16, 2014, 05:37:43 pm

Quote from: Christoph C. Feldhaim on March 16, 2014, 09:55:38 am

I also wanted a zoom factor sufficient to keep it a portrait-like image.

Thanks, Chris. I suspected this was the case.
Just print them big.  ;)

Title: Re: Meet The Crow !
Post by: Bruce Cox on March 16, 2014, 07:12:45 pm

I think the crow would be better off if you were to use the right edge of first set and the left of the second set.

Title: Re: Meet The Crow !
Post by: Bruce Cox on March 17, 2014, 09:44:13 am

sort of like

Title: Re: Meet The Crow !
Post by: Christoph C. Feldhaim on March 17, 2014, 01:51:02 pm

I re-thought/felt all the possibilities and decided to change the cropping for the first three images.
They are in my original post.
For reference I am posting here the old , original crops, which are now obsolete.
Basically I decided to decide between either a full body portrait (1 and 2) or a zoomed in portrait, which doesn't look castrated then (3).
Great input from Bruce and I think it was a classical "I want to have everything" problem.
Thanks !
Cheers
~Chris