Adieu
by gyaban

Comment:
uh oh here comes Christophe...everyone give up now! ;-)

Floating Spectre
by stphq

Comment:
Uh oh, looks like little Linda Blair is all grown up and as crazy as ever! :-)

Echoes of Souls
by vawendy

Comment:
Nice work Wendy, congrats on the red!

The Old Apothecary
by Paul

Comment:
ha, I was going to do a shot like this but ended up going with another idea. Very good, clean and simple shot. 7

Head Down at Sun Down
by rathomas

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Not a bad shot, like the glowing lights reflected on the water, but it definitely needs some work. The diffused flash does help illuminate the goose but also gave you some glare off the white, which makes it look flat. As noted in the comments, the tail/back are in focus, and not the head. The head and especially the eye are all-important for any kind of photo involving anything with an eye. If the eye is not tack sharp, you will get voted down and that's what happened here...a combo of missed focus, too low an ISO, and what looks like too high a flash setting. A tighter crop might have helped.

I have that lens and as with most lenses, it is not at its best wide-open. A smaller aperture, say f3.5 or f4.0 and a much higher ISO (take advantage of the D7k and its high ISO performance capabilities; I'd start around 800, easy) would help tremendously. As would a few slices of bread! Not foolproof but will definitely help cut back on the goose-chasing time :-)

If you get the chance to reshoot, go for it. This time try the suggested changes, and don't be afraid to hunker down and shoot more at goose-eye level.

Hope this critique has been of help, keep up the good work and feel free to PM me.

Susan

avian abstraction
by disassociation

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

I like this, a nice chaotic abstract of bird forms and shapes as your title implies. Why it scored so low? Probably because you have so many subjects in the frame, dpc voters usually like one central figure to draw attention to themselves. There's a lot of front-to-back focus on a lot of birds. Also looks like you shot around noon, which is when the light is most brutal - hard shadows and especially unforgiving on contrasty subjects. In one of my books on exposure, the author pretty much advocates hanging up the camera between the hours of 11am and 3pm for this reason alone. The colours otherwise are quite nice and natural in colour.

That's pretty much all I can give you, hope this critique has been useful.

Feel free to PM me.

Susan

What Lies Beneath
by Ja-9

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Looks like the opening scene from a movie about giant gators (or is it crocs in Florida? I can never remember). Great colour, love the super-high horizon as if you're down there in the water, but I get the sense that we should be looking for something to disturb this sylvan scene...like a croc/gator snout breaking the surface and sending out ripples to warn us that all is not so peaceful. What does lie beneath?

Great dof, light to die for, comp works well. I think the size hurt you a bit as it looks quite small and the border minimizes it even more. A lot of good stuff going on here, if only it were bigger.

Feel free to PM me

Susan

Impact!
by frogaroo66

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Lovely capture, very surreal and dreamy - not surprised to see it got a posty Red ribbon, which is quite an honour. The water spraying up around her looks like wings and her bikini just gives a hint of the woman she is. Good use of technicals, but probably scored a bit lower as the voters tend to like bright poppy colours (and startling b/ws...go figure). The light looks a little flat, which would also hurt your score. This was an Advanced challenge; don't be afraid to use your pp skills so long as you stay within the parameters.

Overall a very nice shot, keep on shooting what you like and entering it!

Feel free to PM me

Susan

two of us going nowhere
by posthumous

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Cute doggies and a nice high finish, what more could you want? :-) Love the POV and energy here, the one dog glancing back is great and wonderful capture on a nice sharp eye amidst the chaos. Personally I might have cropped the right side a tetch more, 1/2 in or so, but they're not exactly getting lost in the shuffle.

Good work Don, keep it up!

Feel free to PM me

Susan

the thrill of roller derby
by disassociation

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

I don't know the first thing about roller derby but I do see a good attempt at motion panning. Sadly in a challenge like this people want to see a lot - around 1 second or more to get the full effect. The subject is great, but the effect is more of slight blur than panning. As it stands there is a lot of background clutter. Cropping it so you get in the ref pointing at her and the two refs immediately to her left should help a lot.

With an ISO of 2500 there's no shortage of noise but the lighting conditions pretty much prohibit anything lower. At least you had a fast lens with you, that helps!

Keep on shooting and entering, and feel free to PM me.

Susan