Sigma 400 5.6 APO + 1.4 TC, Astia, braced on car window.

-- Peter May (peter.may@stetson.edu), March 15, 1999

Answers

Lovely texture on the birds but I think there are to many distracting elements...

-- Tait Stangl (taits@usa.net), March 15, 1999.

Actually I believe the "distracting elements" keep it from being another boring bird portrait. Good job.

-- Chris Hawkins (peace@clover.net), March 15, 1999.

The branches in the background are definitely distracting. Another problem is that there is something sticking out from the water immediately above the head of the male(?) teal on the right side. I would shoot from a slightly different angle, perhaps a bit further to the right, to avoid merger of the subject and the background.

-- Shun Cheung (shun@worldnet.att.net), March 15, 1999.

Quite often I've seen you somehow get away with having a background that should be distracting, not look distracting. This time you didn't get away with it. However, ducks are nice. What do you think of the sigma 1.4X?

-- Larry Korhnak (lvk@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu), March 15, 1999.

Actually,

I think the problem with the white logs in the background is there proximity (SP?) to the edge. Crop down so that the top left white branches is cropped out where it meets the water on the left side. The bit of blue that now runs across the top is better then having the white right there.

-- Paul Lenson (lenson@pci.on.ca), March 16, 1999.

I would crop out the top log but leave in the v-shaped reflection to fill in that corner of the image.

-- Paul DiBiase (paulcanada@hotmail.com), March 18, 1999.

The lovely water and some of the extra elements in the scene add to the portrait of the birds, as does their shared pose. An noted, with a bit of a crop from the top its very nice.

-- Garry Schaefer (schaefer@pangea.ca), March 19, 1999.

The critiques fall neatly into two camps, those who find the extra elements distracting, and those who find thay add to the picture. Count me with the latter camp! My only proble is one of balance. I find the "blob of blackness" which is part of the top horizontal trees a bit too weighty so close to the top of the frame. For this reason I would crop most of the top off, such that the birds will be centered half way between the top edge and the bottom edge (almost a panorama format). I'd crop, not to remove distracting elements but for balance.

-- Andreas Carl (andreas@physio.unr.edu), March 22, 1999.