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Inspiring and Supporting Photographers of Australian Birds

Brown Falcon

Photographed by

Gunther Frensch on Fri 13th Oct, 2017 and uploaded on Sat 14th Oct, 2017 .

Resolution

674x1050

Viewed

614

27876

Comment

As requested in the last newsletter, I am submitting this to the critique gallery for consideration to submitting it to the new gallery. I saw this bird flying in a distance with the snake and after it landed I zigzagged to get near it, taking photos as I got closer. This was the best. However it was taken against a white cloudy sky, in the heat of the day. Not ideal, but the photo had to be taken. Processed in ACR (exposure increased), dodging on darker parts of bird and some vibrance used. A few annoying branches removed and sky replaced. Should this photo be submitted to the new Gallery?

Equipment

Camera: Nikon D500; Lens: Nikkor 80.0-400.0, f/4.5-5.6, AFS, G, ED
Hand held at 400mm, ISO 1600, 1/1600th sec at f/9. (Set up to catch bird flying of the perch, which I did do but unfortunately missed focus and photos unusable.)

Location

Red Banks Conservation Park near Burra, South Australia

Keywords

female, feeding/with prey, adult

This image is not available for download.

Glenn Pure	2017-10-15 10:25:36	Interesting to see this bird with a snake. I don't know a lot about them but suspect we don't have any or many shots like this so I think you should take a look at our holdings of this species and consider uploading to New Images - as I've mentioned before, it's always a good idea to have a look at the photos we already have before uploading. As for the shot, I understand the difficult lighting here and you've done fairly well to recover it. The sky looks good but I think the bird and perch could be lightened just a whisker more. Detail on the bird looks good. As for composition, I can see you have chosen this to keep all of the snake in the frame. I wondered though whether this would work with just part of the snake? I think this is worth a try as it will show the bird better and also the 'business end' of the snake.
Gunther Frensch	2017-10-15 13:22:08	Thanks for your comment on this photo. I agree with lighting the branches and the bird and will do that. As for including the whole snake, my thoughts were to show its length. I will try it cropped and see what it looks like. As a side note thanks for being prepared to comment on most of the photos submitted to this gallery. I am sure others appreciate it as I do.
Glenn Pure	2017-10-16 09:11:55	No problems Gunther. Composition is a very subjective thing although some compositions are going to win popularity contests over alternatives. In the end, crop the way you think is best. As for critiques on this gallery, may I put out a call to all who see this to also add their critiques, no matter how short they are. We all have a view on whether a photo is a good one or not and it's helpful to all to let others know - in a constructive way and one that makes it clear that it's simply a personal viewpoint (there are no objective 'rights' and 'wrongs'). Make sure you say more than 'great shot' or similar but provide a brief explanation why. That will not only help the photographer but also help you develop your own photography as you are likely to think about what makes a good photo. This gallery won't survive if just a couple of people provide critiques. So if you find it useful, please provide critiques yourself.
Gunther Frensch	2017-10-16 14:38:06	--Thanks Glenn

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EXIF.UndefinedTag:0xA434: 80.0-400.0 mm f/4.5-5.6

	37/283 in Critique Gallery
	112/153 by Gunther Frensch
	54/204 of Brown Falcon
	183/529 of Falcons
	11285/34367 Overall
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