Handheld at dawn, 200mm, cropped to square using full height of image top to bottom
RAW image processed in Photomatix Pro and Wukong
Export to CS3, two images layered and Wukong image faded, crop, hue/sat, swans masked and brightened with curves, touch of diffuse glow, vignette, resize, high pass sharpening, border, save for web.
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This is not a good time for birds anywhere I normally get to, and the weather has been horrible. In any case, I don't feel like doing "portraits" of birds, I never have, even though these typically score best. I like pictures of the birds in their environment. I'd have loved it if one of them had decided to "stand up" and flap his/her wings, but they just sailed serenely down and around the bend out of site, with me tracking them all the way, and this was the prettiest shot I came up with.
This was shot handheld at ISO 800, 1/250 shutter and wide open at f/4.0 and 200mm, just after dawn. Not much light at all, hence the high ISO. I used burst mode, which helped. It's the second image in sequence and it is noticeably sharper than the first one. BG is soft because it is OOF, of course. Focus was on the water between the swans.
Driving into, and out of, the marsh I kept seeing these ducks or whatever they are with like round heads and mohawks, but as soon as I stopped the car and opened the door they beat feet and took off, and I wasn't fast enough to catch them in the act. So swans it is, for better or for worse.
The image, I do like it a lot; but I don't expect it to score very well.
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Nice colours here but I'm not a fan of the composition. The bright grass is distracting and takes my eyes away from the swans which blend into the water. Maybe a tighter crop would of helped to make the swans more of a focal point.
nice lines and crispness. Gets very complex down on that water though. Very minor considering the Great things that are going on in the photo with the birds looking at each other, the beautiful field, the great background of trees blurred out to force your eye back to the foreground. Very nice photograph.
nice capture here, I like the fact that the banks are in focus and not the trees, it gives oomph. The swans look like they are still juvinials, which is a clever shot as everyone has gone for pure white swans. I like this 9
Swans are nicely positioned in the frame relative to each other and colors are good. I think I would have cropped out everything above the bank to focus more on the swans and the reflections of the trees, which are very nice.
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