paul_de_ley

Hi David, I like this one best of the two! You might try rotating a trifle to see if a horizontal position of the belly improves the composition even more.

Beautiful color palette! Looks like it blunted its beak by digging a few burrows too many.

Last and wackiest of the three. Life's a party! (when he's not chasing

off everyone else) ^j^

A more elegant pose than #1, but this particular female is always

tangling with spider webs it seems! Do you like the sense of motion of

the wing blur?

Have been experimenting for a few mornings with various lenses, isos

and shutter speeds to catch the effects of dawn backlighting on

hummingbirds coming in for an early drink. No flash involved but I

added a 10mm macro ring to get closer with my non-macro 300mm.

Great composition capturing a small tragedy! A minor tweak could be to increase foreground dof (what body and lens did you use? increase iso and stop down to f11 or f16?) and/or pluck out the taller blade of grass covering the cheek

Finished a pond project in my back yard this afternoon and this

dragonfly was the first to officially come and inspect it. Larger please!

Excellent focus and nice composition! The highlights in the face and the dark tones look just a little washed out, try adjusting levels and/or the ends of the curve a little. A tighter crop showing only the owl could also be interesting.

Looks like an antlion to me, dragonflies don't have long antennae like that.

Truly amazing contrast of colors and textures! Muchas gracias Roberto

Remarkable and highly original capture Anatol! How did you manage to get the focus so exactly on the eyes and body? 7/7

This little guy was making fun of me - is it the perfect anti-pose or

what? ;)

Nice focus on the egg! Would have been perfect if the eyes of the wasp on the left could have been in focus too.

A busy phoebe taking a break in between supply runs to & from its nest

under an old fire escape. Do you like it?

Or are they sharing a joke? Nice counterbalance between the postures of both birds!

Hi Michael, I would suggest a slight reduction in overall brightness and a more pronounced deepening of the darker tones by shifting the lowest point in "curves" or the median slider in "levels". The focus on the bird is excellent. Composition-wise the pose suggests a portrait orientation of the image would have been even better, or a square crop evenly centering the bird.

These guys hardly ever come out in the open so I like this as a habitat pose, and a slightly tighter crop would have emphasized even better the interesting "expression" created by the black cap, red eye and tilted beak like. I agree with William that the image looks too sharpened though, and maybe also the -1.3 exposure compensation on the camera and/or lower end of the tone curve on computer were pushed a little too far for comfort.

Your comments appreciated!

Striking and scary! The ?-shaped reflection of the keyhole's silhouette in the pupil provides an extra touch of the mysterious.

This mayfly didn't mind my getting really close for maximum

magnification. Do you think the contrast is too exaggerated?

Your comments appreciated!

An opportunity shot through the window. I had just come back inside the house after giving

my manual focus Tamron 500mm mirror lens a spin in the backyard to see how well it could

do handheld on my Sony A100 with image stabilization on.

Beautiful juxtaposition of textures, makes you feel as if your fingers are touching lichens and feathers. Remarkable harmony of shades of green/olive and red/rust.