Crit: Wild Turkey

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<B>Wild Turkey</B> - Carmichael California<BR>

<I>Leica R4sP, 280mm f/4 APO-Telyt-R, E100G film</I>

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Exposure was 1/60 sec @ f/4 using shoulder stock and

monopod. I wanted to show the bright colors of the tom's wattles

and irridescent feathers. All comments welcome.

Doug: If I could do as well I would be delighted. The picture is beautiful. I think the physical balance is a little bit off. A little more space on top might balance the shot more IMHO. It looks like the top of the comb is a little bit washed out. You did a wonderful job on the colors and detail.

Mark J.

Doug,

Nice pic... but it reminds me of some of my clients!!!! (LOL)

Cheers

Wow, I've never gotten close enough to a wild turkey to know that

their feathers are irridescent. Good shot! I would agree that the

top of his head looks a touch blown out, but I like the

composition.

(Last month, a group of ten wild turkeys came thru our yard and

the four toms in the group stopped and had a face-off with my

neighbor's domesticated tom. Wish I had gotten a shot of that!)

Doug

It would have been a better image had you used your SL, but I guess you already

know that.<LOL>

You�ve done a superb job of pulling out the iridescence in the feathers. I�m not in

your league by any stretch but I�ve been trying to capture that with ducks on and off

for years and it�s not easy.

Other than that my thoughts mirror those provided above.

Have you ever thought of coming down here (Australia) to photograph birds I

understand? The species you've got over there are just wrong.

Best regards, Craig

Thanks all for the critique - there might be more space above the

turkey's head hidden by the slide mount, from your comments it

would be worth my time to re-scan the slide w/o the mount.

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Craig, would love to photograph upside-down birds some day

[grins]. Believe it or not this probably would have been better

with the SL, for several reasons: The SL's mirror is shorter so I

get some mirror cut-off with some long lenses - so I probably

would have unknowingly included more space at the top. Also,

the R4sP was pulled out of retirement for this one roll of film,

then quickly retired again. Now that I'm nearly 52 yrs old I can't

focus it any more. The SL is easy to focus and I would have

gotten lots more 'keepers' to choose from. I'll have a dedicated

E6 body again when my black SL2 returns from DAG.