guus

the old wise soul in her eyes and expression makes this one. cheeks and tshirt are burned out and her hair is too black but who cares.. very nice shot of a very pretty lady!

tasteless

if it would be a painting i would like the composition and colors, for a photo I find it a bit blurry.

looks like there was some processing around the beak

i like the very thin dof, but still would have preferred her lips in focus as well

distracting border

Thanks! Besides the gruesome practice of nets and guns, a fast telephoto lens with short shutter time will do it, where the difficult bit is getting the focus right, because with a telephote the area in focus is very small and the bird moves pretty fast.

grainy

oversaturated in the greens, out of balance colorwise.

'birds' pretty in b&w too.

comments appreciated.

masterful indeed! wonderful picture! and thanks for all the technical details (you can find them under 'details' on the same page)

next to timing, the angle is also very nice, almost perfectly symmetrical.

Cool topic, but burned-out window/door and low light on the main topic doesn't make it a nice pic.

I miss sharpness at the stem, that would have made it perfect for me.

i like the idea but don't find the colors pleasing.

I like the overall composition but the activity on the horizon eats away some of the serenity.

The highly saturated colors don't work for me. The burned out spot on the leg takes away the attention from the somewhat underexposed head. The pose doesn't compensate these drawbacks.

a bit of dandelion yellow would have helped the green part.

Mr Anders Moller, who did an important experiment on the barn swallow tailstreamer, demonstrating very clearly that sexual selection is driving tail streamer length, quickly convinced me that this small foraging advantage would not be a major reason for the existance of the streamers, the major argument being that they loose their streamers on the way back to their winter destination. And then on the way back, the males develop long tails, just in time for mating, cause the girls like the boys with the longest tails. It's a little more complicated then that, because also aerodynamic advantages can be shown, but the strongest drive seems to be sexual selection in any case.

Cool isn't it?

Regards,

Guus.

Thanks! I forgot to level indeed. I replaced the pic with the leveled version.

First experiments with Flash (580ex) and bird action photography. I

was surprised by the long tail striking the water. In the flightpath

you can see an insect, out-of-focus, but clearly sitting there to be

picked up. The reflection of the flash on the not-so-flat water

creates some artifacts on the bird, but I don't find them

distracting. I venture the hypotheses that these long tails are

mainly used in low-flight navigation, as this type of swallow is

known for its extreme low flying.

Any comments appreciated.

Any comments appreciated.

thanks! That's a nice tip!

Any comments appreciated.

I find these black birds difficult to get right, mostly because they

are black... This one came out right qua details on the bird, but a

little low on colours, probably because of the direction of the sun.

Any comments much appreciated.