Debris

This is nice visually in terms of the diagonals and the water and the feather floating on it with yet water drops beading up on it and the cognitive idea of fallen leaves and fallen feathers.

It would have been nicer, perhaps, had the entire feather been in sharp focus, and it's not clear that the trade off you mad here in exposure was necessary in that regard. Was the feather moving in the water such that 1/320 was needed versus the rather wide f/4.5? And, angain, going two stops up in ISO could have allowed you, even at that shutter speed, to go to at least f/8, and you would have picked up enough DoF at f/8 to get the base of the feather in focus and the drops of water on it.

Hindsight is 20:20; we all know that too well! But I would think that unless you have some reason, some point to make, in representing it thusly, in the future, it might be good to try varying the exposure parameters to "bracket" things when you find a fantastic subject like this. That's what I've been doing; I realize that I'm not smart enough to figure out the optimum at the time, so I just shoot all around it and sort it out later.

<big smile> John you are rather new and don't know that I'm a sloppy photographer. I shoot more by feel than anything else and so darned often shoot with the camera set the way it was for my previous shot, which had been set for a some shot previous to that..

I honestly do appreciate your detailed response and may well pay attention and look for this feather again. It is not far unless the wind had risen.

Thanks to the time and evaluation.

Charlie

I think this is an interesting shot, Charlie.

Very cool, Charlie. I like your composition. I probably would have stuck it in the Macro/Close-up category.

I like this, Charlie. Feather detail with clear water and a little surface tension makes the feather the main focus. I don't mind the OOF feather stem (if that's what it's called), the slight focus difference keeps my eye from going there and leaving the frame.

Charlie,
I think this shot works well for the reasons already identified. The surface tension at the tip of the OOF feather point is really interesting. I hear you about often setting up and shooting on the previous outing's settings. Wonder what it would look like with the tip in focus.