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It's a very nice image, but it seems to me to be just a bit too tight.  It looks like you maybe cropping out some bright sky so I understand why it may have been necessary.  Just seems a touch tight but its a really lovely image.

Nice, but I think a bit of cropping off the left side would help with the composition.

It's nice, but the lighting is a touch harsh.  I might play around with photoshop and darken the hot spots on her face.

I think a tighter crop wold work here. maybe remove a third of the left.  I'd recommend not centering your subject as much.

Very nicely spotted.  Works great!

Nicely composed, but the lighting is a bit harsh.  If you ever find yourself with a similar subject a diffuser, a reflector , or shooting at a different time of day might soften the light.

Outstanding image. Magic moment.

Love it!

Very sweet image.

Gordon,

Looks like we share a love of salamander images.  Like you, I like to get eye-level shots, and that's never easy, especially as they try and move about.  Love the eft!

Stunning image generally, but I have to admit I don't like the way the highlights look in her eyes. Totally loosing the pupil makes her look a little unnatural.

I absolutely love you image.  Great composition wonderful concept and well-rendered. Even the texture on the snow makes this image.

I don't comment on a lot of portraits, but I really loved this one. I love the softness, I like the girl's expression, sort of a thinking person's expression.  One of those images that seems to send you into her mind. Soulful-wonderful!

Fantastic image there.  Snakes are a challenge to me unless they are curled up.  Very nicely rendered.

Positively a stunning image. Thank you very much for sharing this incredible image.

Difficult to catch, I am very well aware how nervous Kingfishers are.

Jeff,

Absolutely beautiful. Two of my favorite subjects in one, octopus and deep sea life. Thanks for shareing. 

Perfect timing.  I got one too, but no where as lovely as yours.

Amy and I are on the same brainwave, matchboxes.  Nicely done.

For this image I was out biking with my daughter so I had a K5iis and a consumer 55-300 f5.8 lens.  While she was running around a maze I chased a few butterflies.  I had really strong side light so the colors look fine to me and saturated as I saw it. Possibly my screen isn't calibrated properly, likely too bright. 

The lens is good, but no match for a prime, and I was handholding so it's no match for a tripod shot .  Obviously I would have like the near flowers in focus too, so that is distracting.

Actually this was part of another image, I saw this in the corner and posted it just for fun.  As to the 'excess f stop' I don't recall what I was shooting at but the lens max aperture is only f5.8 and since I was handholding I don't think it was stopped down  much more than that.

Mike,

Unfortunately I am two days away from starting my classes so I have to go into, "camera hibernation".  I am generally on my own with subects that I have to shoot fast before they dart away.  This image was taken basically parallel with the subject.  My intent is to get shots with subjects at eye-level as much as I can.  In the field I did shoot one at f8 but very clearly more of the subject was out of focus.

I ran a quick and dirty set at f2.8, f4, f8, f14, and f22 with a toy frog at its closest (or close to) setting.  More or less the same setup where all I changed was stopping down the lens.  Again, limbs were out of focus.  You see my test shots at  here. To me, the lack of depth of field wide open simply ruins the subject. I would try something more extensive, but again I have dive into getting my web sites up for my class this weekend.  If you have a similar set of images shot with a macro I'd love to see how you mange it.

Cheers,

Doug

Because this is coming up I think I need to explain better my philosophy of Nature Photography.  I am a Biologist and naturalist first, an artist second. My photographic 'teachers' were John Shaw as I read just about everything he ever wrote and the Minnesota Nature Photography club through their nature salons.  I do occasionally shoot artistic images (ie very limited depth of view, odd focal lengths to capture subjects such as ultra wides on fungi, etc) but I don't think of them then as nature images.  I generally find it personally extremely distracting to have critical elements out of focus, especially elements in front of my main subjects; again a premise of Shaw's lessons. My intent is to capture a full and no confusing story  of my subjects. I enjoy the work of more abstract artists but only occasionally dabble in that area.

I appreciate Mike's artistic suggestions because they represent a different perspective.  They tell a different story.  I am by no means an expert; I did teach Nature Photography at Hanover College about 14 years ago, all film of course. As a professor evaluating a lot of images I came to appreciate many types of photography and appreciated the creative flavor of each student. Although I've been doing digital now for about a decade I am still learning the craft. But one of my intents is always going to be, as I increase my library of images, to get as clean a realistic image as possible.

Next year I will be traveling for several months in Oz.  As I will be roughing it I need to limit myself to four lenses, something wide, a macro, a walk-about lens and something long.  Weight and focal reach are competitive issues as I want to do capture everything I can, landscapes, macros, birds, even underwater. So I am trying different combinations of my lens selection to see what I can manage without breaking my back.

Merci for reading this long post.

Doug

And yes, I do always appreciate Mike's critical and expert eye.

I have many images that I shot of this same subject as low as f8.  At that aperture while the eye is in focus, the nose is not and more of the moss in front is out of focus. This animal is probably about 1.5 cm wide so I had to stop down to get more in focus. I personally found those  images at f8 as unacceptable; at f2.8 I likely would have had even a narrower DOF.