paul_de_ley

A truly excellent action shot, he looks quite upset at having missed yet again! You get really drawn in by the color and sharpness of the eye in the large-size version. With PN's smaller default display size version, it could be interesting to try out a closer crop along the left and top edge (say about 50% of the current space) to enhance the forward motion and bring out the triangle formed with the darker patch in the reflection.

The color pattern on this one matches that of a green heron

This looks like a belted kingfisher (ringed kf looks similar from above but is not supposed to occur north of south texas). Is that a butterfly it's caught?

Hi Jeff, this looks like it could be a boat-tailed grackle (cos of brown eye), did you catch it on film or pixel somewhere near Tampa or in an entirely different part of the world?

Very expressive as well as technically excellent, a true visual delight!

I agree with Andre, this is an interesting angle of view but it could use a little more sharpness in the antennae and the tongue. The orientation of the butterfly also would better fit when framed as portrait rather than landscape (easier said than done of course, especially with macro this close to the subject)

Very subtle colors and nice sparkly effect of the cells on the surface of the flower petal, thanks for this Helga! The details around the spider look a tad too pixelated by jpeg artefacts, but then that's probably the result of PN's automated treatment of uploads.

Jumping Spiders are usually cute but this one is pretty scare in

close-up, with its really long and hungry-looking fangs and front

legs...longer than in any I've seen before in the flesh or here on PN.

Does anyone happen to know which one this could be? It was in the

shade and already looked a bit too shiny on the first test shots, so I

thought flash was better avoided.

Just one of the thousands of eyepopping and traffic-jamming jeepneys

that rule the roads in the Philippines every day. The tropical

sunlight was harsh and perfectly vertical (as usual) but in this case

I think it helped bring out the colors, what do you think?

Thanks Everyone! I usually go for a tight crop but in this case avoided going below 40% of the original image size. Should have brought a longer lens but I was too worried about potential mishaps along the way.

Very nice Stefano, I especially like the tension between the straight lines of the tail and left side of the tree stump, versus the curves of the head and right side of the stump

This little guy was clearly feeling comfortable inside his bamboo tube

right next to the door of my cottage at the Bohol Bee Farm. Do you

think the crop and composition work well? Thanks!

Great shot of interesting and overly ambitious behaviour! The composition might benefit though from a different crop, e.g. tighter on the right and maybe more space on the left.

Hi Paolo, the sharpness looks good but to me this lens was a bit too short in focal length to do justice to the subject.

Great focus and interesting pose! The background is a bit dull though, maybe try a slightly tighter crop on the right? I've seen this guy in Argentina too, I guess technically they're more often known as red-crested cardinals rather than strictly Brazilian.

Hi Greg, Aside from the need to scrutinize this at 50% or 100% size, you'll need to consider a few more things before you can judge the inherent sharpness of a lens, especially while shooting birds: which model is this exactly, what f-stop and shutter speed did you use, were you shooting handheld or from a (solid) tripod?

This little jewel is common in the Philippines but always on the move

and/or hidden among leaves and flowers. Flowering coconut trees seem

to hold their attention for a little longer, so I positioned myself in

hopeful anticipation next to a shorter coco palm and was duly

rewarded. At 2pm the sunlight was quite harsh though!

Very fractal, well done!

Thanks for your comments and suggestions!

I agree with Dave, this is a very pleasingly tantalizing image, the shadows and unusual lighting combine with the shallow DOF to make the moth stand out. Was this a sunset shot or is the pink tone on left caused by a bulb? The tilted lines are very dynamic. Maybe crop the darker top edge a little more?

Hi Dimitar, nice shot but considering that the poor bee is getting eaten, perhaps not as lovely a scene as the title suggests! More like the "Kiss of Death" maybe...

Wonderful colors, lightning and sharpness! I agree that the dark background blob is a bit distractive (what IS it...?) but if we could all always choose our backgrounds then we'd probably all end up imitating each other all the time :)

Great image James! Although maybe not "almost" but rather "beyond human"? I could never grab my own ankles at that angle...but then my joints are all rusty :)

Very nice DOF but this composition would benefit by tilting everything 90 degrees clockwise I think

Squeak!! If I was a vole I'd be saying my prayers right now... and as a photo.net member I'd pick this as one of the absolute best bird photos I've seen here to date: pure perfection, including the purple tinge of the snow and the subtle bokeh of the sprinkling of light reflections from ice crystals.