It's here somewhere

AWESOME MOMENT, I like the reflection and overall calmness, the bird to me is pulling little bit of attention because is for my taste too bright, other that it is veeeery strong shot, congrats!

Nice idea, the high shutter speed has frozen the action, but the image is soft and without critical sharpness - re-enforced in the large version,- I'm struggling to understand why as the whole image seems soft, - if it were camera shake I would have expected the splash droplet beads to be softer than they are - have you applied any sharpening or is it loss of quality through large cropping

Thanks Verdon just trying something a little different.

Mike I was attempting a differnt take, I have some really sharp images of the egret. The subject was just 50M away and the effort with resulting water pattern seemed worth recording. No big crop factor.

Potentially a strong image the water is good and colours nice. However it if it is not sharp bin it. Sorry if that is harsh not meant to be but it is the single most crucial aspect of nature photography IMO, other things such as comp can all be a matter of opinion. Have a look through your really sharp shots and post one of those. I would not hand hold 800 on 1.3 crop as any movement is going to be magnified and this could be a cause of your loss of IQ.

I am constantly being advised to be my own biggest critic and i think it is good advice. If you know it is not right don't accept it, as others will not, bin it and try again.

Hope this does not come across as mean trying to be helpful

Hi Barry it could have been a very good image, but it looks like it is not sharp which this type of image needs to be to work.

Phil.

It's the sort of image where I don't necessarily think that sharpness is paramount. As a composition it works for me through the gradations in colour and the simple serenity of the scene.

Thanks Guy's. Kim has put it far better than I. Sharpness is not always the be all and end all of a shot there can be far more to the image and to me this one had just that factor.

Hi Barry.
Kim as hit the nail on the head with her comment on this smashing image.
Hand holding a 800ml thats impressive.

Keith

Barry
Interesting comments.
I quite like it, but just a question.
Did you want the shot to be sharp ????
Cheers
john

John

Your question is the very point that I was trying to convey in the image. The shot is a blend of colour and movement depicted in a still image sharpness is not a priority in my humble opinion. I was trying to capture the egrets movements and the resulting water surface pattern. As I said previously I already have the pin sharp upright alert image. This was just a different view.

Interestings to read the various views none the less. Thank you.

interested in your technique with the infomation provided you would have had a dof of say 1m and @ 1/3200 all movement would be frozen (that would be enough to get a KF diveing ) have you run a slight blur filter over the image?

as you say this was the effect you wanted i withdraw my bin it and try again comment and say well done as you got what you set out for and in the end thats all that matters not what anyone else thinks

Love the ripple effect and colours. Don't mind the apparent softness as it does help to give the impression of motion in an otherwise tranquil scene. Could quibble about whether or not the complete submergence of the head works as a composition but, given the speed of the action I suspect that you didn't have many frames to choose from.

Phil

Not a problem I have found the comments interesting and informative in fact on reflection just how this site used to be. So critique away that's what we're here for be really dull if we all stuck to the rules. I can say that as an ace nonconformist.