ElanIIe, 75-300 USM, Kodak RG200, scanned from print.

-- Amy Boone (boone@chem.ufl.edu), March 30, 1999

Answers

Lake Alice is a wonderful place to explore, especially with a camera. The graduated blue/purple background is nice but the subject is muddled into it. Some fill flash or a different exposure may have helped. The intersecting shoreline vegetation doesn't help pop the subject either. Larry Korhnak

-- Larry Korhnak (lvk@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu), March 30, 1999.

Great to see another UF person on here! Larry and I were getting lonely... Anyway, the photo: I concur completely with Larry about lighting. The light in your photo is flat and the whole thing looks underexposed, except that patch of clouds reflected in the bottom right corner. In the future, try using some fill flash in circumstances like this to provide more detail on the subject. Also, because of the sloping banks at Lake Alice it looks like you are looking down on the bird (which you probably were). A more "eye- level" approach would be nice here, although I know it's hard with the aforementioned sloping bank. Hope these are helpful. I always like to get comments, even if the observations are obvious. Keep posting!

-- Joe Cheatwood (cheatwoo@ufl.edu), March 31, 1999.

I forgot to mention: try scanning from negatives when possible. I have had situation in the past where the actual photo on the negative was much nicer than the print for some reason. If you have access to a slide scanner that will let you scan negatives, give it a shot.

-- Joe Cheatwood (cheatwoo@ufl.edu), March 31, 1999.

I like everything but the branches in front of the bird . Was this early morning or evening ? The lighting sets the mood and I prefer how you captured it .Branches are always getting in the way .

-- John Tait (jtait@northcom.net), April 04, 1999.

This was taken in the evening.....the branches annoy me somewhat....however, i love the lighting.....the scan, of course, doesn't do it justice.....i'm looking into having some of my photos scanned at a local photo place from the actual negatives.....anyways, i tried taking photos of these birds with difference exposures....and well they all looked like pictures of a bird.....however, to me, the mood in this photograph makes it interesting....

thanks to everyone for responding :) amy b.

-- Amy Boone (boone@chem.ufl.edu), April 05, 1999.