Canada Aleutian and Canada Snow geese...nightly fly-in

The nightly fly-in of Aleutian Canada Geese and Canada Snow Geese in

the Stanislaus River Reserve.

Nice coloration, strong dynamics. 7/7 anonymously

Very nice image. I like the straight lines, and the contrast of the white birds that are settling in against the dark background is excellent. You were in a perfect spot.

This image has been selected for discussion. It is not necessarily the "best" picture the Elves have seen this week, nor is it a contest. It is simply an image that the Elves found interesting and worthy of discussion. Discussion of photo.net policy, including the choice of Photograph of the Week should not take place here, but in the Site Feedback forum.

Before writing a contribution to this thread, please consider our reason for having this forum. We have this forum because future visitors might be interested in learning more about the pictures. They browsed the gallery, found a few striking images and want to know things like why is it a good picture, why does it work? Or, indeed, why doesn't it work, or how could it be improved?

So, when contributing to this thread, please keep the above in mind. Address the strengths, the shortcomings of the image. It's not good enough to like it, you should spend some time trying to put into words why that is the case. Equally so if you don't like it, or if you can't quite make up your mind.

Let's make sure this forum is a wonderful learning resource for future photographers!

Thank you and enjoy!

In reviewing your portfolio, I see you photograph lots of flying things - aircraft, balloons, butterflies, birds of all sorts. many of them are very fine and interesting studies. in fact beautiful art in many cases.

 

This one, however, doesn't do a lot for me. I am sure the birds excited chatter at the time of the shooting of the picture must have been interesting, depending of course on what type of birds these happen to be. I suspect they are gulls of some sort, but really cannot tell from the photograph.

 

My problems with the photo, which is more an abstract than most of your other photographs, concerns the horizontal elements. At the bottom is a layer of empty field, then a line of birds already on the ground, then more field with birds landing, and above that the line of trees and finally the sky full of birds.

 

As is my personally assigned "duty" I look for places to crop photographs, and I find each of these layers of the photograph could be cropped to change (improve?) the image. I definitely would crop off the very bottom layer. It serves absolutely no purpose in my mind. Then with lesser zeal, I would crop the line of sitting birds, then the field. I see the best abstract crop by eliminating the trees as well, leaving a sky full of landing birds as the picture. Please don't take my criticism too seriously, as fellow Photo.netters rarely agree with my critiques.

 

You have lots of great photographs in your portfolio and I commend you for that. My best to you and congratulations for being chosen this week.

 

Willie the Cropper

I played with the previous posters suggestion in PS because I was having trouble visualizing it - it becomes a very different image and might also benefit from some digital processing (i.e. rubber stamp tool) to remove the partial birds (at edges or crop lines) as I think they detract a little bit. The crop I experimented with removed some of the upper sky and the area where the birds were sitting at the very bottom. If you do any cropping LEAVE THE TREES! In my opinion, they really ground the image.

 

Overall, it is an interesting composition, but I am not awestruck by the photo.

I think this photo is very interesting. On the top there is contrast between light color sky and silhouettes of the birds. At the bottom is the opposite, white birds and dark ground and finally the middle is almost neutral , the trees and the fog gives good balance to this image. But overall what gives you a reason to look at this photo i think is the color of the sky and the birds.

Fotografiame 곴a!!!

 

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=4414911

Excellent photo. Very National Geographic-esque.

From afar, this is a beautiful photograph I would be proud to have taken.

Upon viewing your larger image, however, things quickly fall apart (from a technical perspective).

Was this image very soft? Was there a lot of noise (high ISO)? Was there some form of 'smart' sharpening applied to this? Do I detect the thumbprint of pretty severe noise reduction software in post? The pixelation and artifacting on the large version is so distracting it virtually ruins the large shot. Great for online, but 'as is', I don't think there's a print to be had here.

I like the composition a lot, and see no reason to crop anything, nor do I see any reason to clone off any "half-bird" here or there: birds just fly where they want, not just in a rectangular shape to fill the photographer's frame perfectly.

 

BUT... yes... I'm affraid James is correct about the technical issue: there is way too much noise in your large file - as it was presented here anyway. It could be interesting to find out where that noise comes from. Is there ant way we could see a small portion of the raw file, maybe ? That said, it's a bit of a pity, because I think the picture was aesthetically good...

I see the noise in the photo also. In considering the photo as a graphic with its lovely lines of color, I wonder if the noise could be considered extra texture; as if this had been printed on a textured paper? It might be better without the noise and then actually printed on a ivory textured paper, if such a thing exists.

The stuff most are seeing here (my guess) is from large amounts of post processing (curves, levels, USM) to try and bring detail out. I've had this happen to outdoor shots of mine that I've tried to salvage.

 

Really love the image though. Shame about the artifacts.

Wow! What a shot!

Of course it?s been done with a not so small amount of good luck, but I don?t care. I saw this picture I know it will be one of my all time favorites!

 

Thank you very much for sharing!

Stephan

Overall, I like the photo. Even though it looks just like thousands of others seen in various wildlife magazines, it's still a good shot.

 

Looking at the tech data, the photographer used excellent equipment for the shot. I'd be curious to know the actual exposure data and the shooting mode.

 

As others have mentioned, the quality just vanishes as soon as the viewer opens the larger version. The pixelating, noise, etc. just totally wreck the image. I'm thinking this was not shot in RAW mode, which seems a shame, considering the equipment used. And it could be just poor post-shoot processing.

 

So although the photo looks promising at first, it turns into a disaster upon closer inspection.

Thanks for choosing this image as Photograph Of the Week. I appreciate all the input.

 

Here is what I did to it. RAW processed to JPEG with some exposure and contrast adjustments. Noise Ninja noise reductions. Then, I did do quite a bit of dodging and burning to bring out the background and the white birds. The, some sharpening. The result...closeup views reveal added noise and some halo effects. For stock photography...it would be rejected for sure, I didn't even attempt submission (I do that as well).

I'm including here another shot taken just seconds later for comparison with no additional processing other than RAW to JPEG.

Thanks again, Skip http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=5431282

wow.. awesome image... i surely wouldnt crop anything off...

btw i printed this out in original size... and its simply amazing...

the noise etc etc makes it so beautiful.. its sharpness and texture makes it look so much like a painting...

i like the fact that its a straight shot... imho it makes it look peaceful ...

the element that adds most to this photo is definitely the trees...

congrats...

Skip, you did a great job at bringing out the beauty in the piece, compared to the 'original'. The post processing does look terrible when enlarged to the size you give folks, but who the heck would ever see it with that much detail, unless you enlarged it to, what, a 24x30" (1 meter x 1.3 meter) image or larger? And even then if you're looking at it with your nose on the glass, as many do by the way, it's the wrong way to 'see' it, as art is not necessarily meant to be studied that closely. So don't worry about it is what I'm saying. (by the way, you don't need to keep it 300 dpi, you could at least reduce it to 72 dpi for us too, then no one could 'steal' the piece to print it).

 

About the cropping, Willie, one must decide to find the strength before getting out the scissors and cutting, or you may end up with it on the floor, per your suggestion of taking off the bottom. Leaving only the flying birds would be a pity, and that would take the 'wow' right out of it. As some said, make sure you leave the trees. Why? Again, that's the strength, as it gives you the layering. And what is a good trick to show a 3D world in our 2D medium? That's right, the layering, and that gives us the wow.

 

I would however do some cropping, and as the wow is in the bottom portions, I'd cut some of the top. A hundred birds are as good as a thousand, in this case anyway, and don't add to the depth do they? AND then you would stay in the image longer too, as your eye would not be drawn to the top so much, as it is now. And if you like folks looking at your art longer, which they then would, does that mean you have improved it? Most would say yeah, I like folks looking at my art longer. (Those that don't, please don't read my posts as that's my bottom line proposition on improving images, ok?)

 

Willie, that's probably why you thought it was stronger up there, as your eye goes there a lot. It takes a while to be able to differentiate a distracting element (or area) from a center of interest (or area of interest). Of course, subjectivity does play a part, and the multitudes of 'untrained eyes' could be wrong sometimes (many times is what I'm saying).

 

Last thought- the image adjustment, just because it has been, is nothing we folks do different in the darkroom here, if it had been in black and white. By choosing different contrast grades in paper and developers, and then toning the piece, it could look just like this, less the post processing evidence. Again, good job amigo.

This image seems, to me, to be about textures and patterns. I think the layering is exactly what gives it it's wow factor, Michael's crop (with respect) feels a bit cramped. The top half being all birds creates wonderful patterns that contrast with the three foreground layers of the bottom half, the balance is striking. Thanks.

Ian, if you hold you hand above the original at approx. the spot where I cropped it, you will notice you look at the image longer. If you don't believe me, count the seconds you look at it uncropped, then do something for a few minutes, come back, crop it and count the seconds. I think you will find you look at it about 20-40% longer. The so called 'patterns' are not strong enough to keep you eye in for more than a second or two.

 

The problem with what they allow you to post here, size wise on a shown cropping suggestion, is that you don't get to see the detail like that of the original up higher. Of course, with more detail you would look at it longer, so they are not helping with their 511 pixel maximum requirement, it should be more like 700, I'd guess that's what the one above might be. Blessings, MS

Michael...I kind of like that long poster format crop. Thanks.

Michael - I held my mask a little (not much) higher than your crop, and I did see a completley different image. The trees became the draw for my eye and the birds became somthing to 'consciously' look at, if that makes sense? Thanks for accomadating a newby, and thanks to Skip for a great image.

A couple of things...

While others have suggested that you can 'go with' the noise, I don't think so (maybe on a BW in selected instances you can get away with that). I'm a rank amateur in the world of photography and it just looks unprofessional to me. Also contrary to another critics comments, if you printed this in anything larger than 4x6 YOU CAN see the noise and processing.

But there's good news imo. Your unmanipulated shot shows MORE than enough quality. While I'm new to photog, I've worked with PS for nearly a decade, and (just a sugesstion) this is the course I would take.

Make two, maybe even three jpegs from the original RAW, adjusting the light for various parts of the scene. Stack them on different layers in PS. Mask the upper layers and selectively let throught the best portion of each different jpeg.

Leave Noise Ninja out of the picture altogether.

Make small adjustments to contrast, light burnng and dodging.

You don't use any in-camera sharpening do you? I'd suggest Lab Sharpening lightly (1.5, 150 percent at most) in PS as a last step.

This could be as good a large print as a web graphic. Just make the jpegs you get out of RAW function in the same role that many of your adjustmentsn in PS played previously.

A amateur's suggestions (also somewhat time consuming), but that's what I'd do if I really like this shot.

Large photo is not very good tehnically speaking. What I like here is that this photo really shows different bird stages. From flying to landing. Kind of tornado, that is wide open at top and it narrows somewhere in the bottom right side of the picture. Also the horizontal ground makes the point here. Very nice.

MS, while I like the crop you suggested it brings out the downhill nature of the horizontal lines in the image. They aren't that apparent in the larger version but your version emphasizes those lines. I think straightening it would be needed in your crop.

 

Dave