I knew that a short drive to the Dandenong Mountains would provide plenty of bird shot opportunities, and I've not done a bird shot on DPC before so I don't feel too guilty.
Armed with my 70-300mm and using an SB-800 as fill flash I had more success than ever before - that flash continues to amaze me. One hour of shooting, and 70 shots later I had several candidates to work from.
I wanted something to fit the challenge though, so all the extreme close-ups were eliminated (it wasn't obvious they were taken in the wild), and the Cockatoo's were the most photogenic bird I encountered on the day. I chose this particular shot because the background looks natural and the bird is "smiling" nicely for the camera.
Editing in Photoshop was relatively minor given that the challenge has "Advanced Editing" - a little burning on some background elements, two tiny clones on the branch and some levels to make the photo pop at least a little bit. Then I resized and made a minor crop to top and bottom to square it up a little. Sharpening was applied with a layer mask to the bird only.
I'm disappointed with the background - way too blurred and the bokeh isn't very nice, although I was trying to balance focal length, shutter speed, natural light and flash sync limits so F5 is where it had to be.
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Technical:Its a well exposed picture. Getting focus on all white subject in such lighting conditions is difflicult, but here the job is well done.
Aesthetic:Nice looking picture. I know you went all the way to get "wildlife" picture but still the "feeling" of wild is missing. Maybe the bird is too cute to look "wild" .Still a good looking bird in a great pose.
Challenge:For sure it fits the challenge, but again - somehow I'm not getting the feel of "wildlife".
Conclusion:Oveall an above average picture. I dont know how it could have been improved further considering there is not much scope of postprocessing. Maybe a little bit of dodging to make the bird whiter might have improved the overall contrast and given some depth... but thats just "maybe" :)
I'm by no means expert in area of photography. My comments are purely based on my limited understanding of technology and art behind digital photography. Apart from doing detailed evaluation of your submission, my intent is to learn different styles of photography by critically evaluating selective submissions. If you've got any questions about this critique, please feel free to contact me via email or PM.
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