Some Of My Wildlife Photography- Opinions? ;d

[Carp4U]

Feeling slightly down about the quality of my photo's compared to some other people.
Would like a bit of advice on how to get better photos and some compliments, opinions and criticism of my work would be nice.
If it helps, I'm 15, I do this as a hobby, been doing so properly for a year or so mainly experimenting and teaching myself. I wanted an SLR but I found it was more in my budget and more practical for me to get a 9MP Super-zoom digital- Casio EX-FH20.

Here are my favourite ones but if you want to view any more I've got loads on my flickr account: http/www.flickr.com/photos/47991854@N05/


Super Macro Spider by Alex Staniforth: Wildlife/Nature Photography
Super Macro Spider- one of my cameras strengths.


Gateskeeper Butterfly Macro


Red Admiral Butterfly by Alex Staniforth: Wildlife/Nature Photography
Red Admiral Butterfly Macro


Red Squirrel! by Alex Staniforth: Wildlife/Nature Photography
Not an example of a great photo, but I was so happy to spot a red squirrel!


Comma Butterfly by Alex Staniforth: Wildlife/Nature Photography
Many people will think this is just blurred and out of focus but I think the use of macro from too far away so that it blurs the subject makes the picture of this Comma Butterfly quite effective.


Goldfinch of Nyger Seed Feeder by Alex Staniforth: Wildlife/Nature Photography


Ox-eye Daisy- Macro by Alex Staniforth: Wildlife/Nature Photography


Butterfly on Lady Smock Wildflowers by Alex Staniforth: Wildlife/Nature Photography


Lamb in Bracken by Alex Staniforth: Wildlife/Nature Photography
Got this one in the Lake District.


Grey Squirrel on bird table by Alex Staniforth: Wildlife/Nature Photography
Plenty of grey squirrels where I live!


Dewy grass in early sunrise by Alex Staniforth: Wildlife/Nature Photography

Tell me what you think, I have 90 pictures on Flickr, not all wildlife however. Those are just my favourite

 

[chrisbassist]

They all seem well exposed, nicely in focus with nicely colour saturation, so assuming you're in manual mode looks like you've got the technical side down pretty well, if you're in one of the auto modes then you've got a clever camera.

Since you asked for critique, here it is.

Your weakest part is composition. In pretty much every shot here the subject is dead centre in the frame. Try getting used to the rule of thirds.

So photo 1, the spider, maybe try moving around to an extreme angle and focusing on the face using the web to give you lead in lines (another composition thing to look up)

Photo 2, butterfly. This is a slightly overdone shot. The side on shot of wings is the one everyone gets. Why not try something new? Having said that, try cropping the shot, getting rid of the bottom right to place the thing according to the rule of thirds.

Butterflies can be extremely hard to get right since they can move so quickly so well done for doing what you have.

Shot 3, butterfly. This one I much prefer since it's a slightly different shot to the norm. It could be slightly under exposed, one of the most important things with a portrait (and I see animals as portrait subjects) is seeing the eyes and they're a little dark here. If possible I'd have tried to get in closer, either that or maybe try cropping it square right around the butterfly.

Photo 4, squirrel. You say yourself it's not a good shot, but do you know why? That's the first step to getting better.

Shot 5, butterfly. You think it's quite effective, but at what? Because nothing is in focus, I see nowhere my eyes should be. And having nowhere to put my eyes means I'm not going to look at it. You should always have something in focus. Even if it's a blade of grass right at the front so the butterfly acts as background. Give the viewer somewhere or something to look at. Remember, using focussing techniques and composition, you're telling the viewer where to look.

Shot 6. Goldfinch. Again dead centre of the frame. Try cropping the bottom left. When using the rule of thirds, leave space for the subject (the bird) to move into. And since it's facing the right, it should have more space there.

Shot 7, daisy. I actually like this one. It's well exposed, well composed, you've got enough in focus. To really make it special just sit and wait a few hours for a bee or something.

Shot 8, butterfly. Again, rule of thirds. Unfortunately you've already lost a part of the wing. Try cropping off the right side after the flower, and getting rid of the left side too. Turning it into portrait composition. See what you think then.

Sheep. This could have worked well. Again the placement let's it down. I think you either need to get closer to fill the frame a bit more, or move away to capture the place where the sheep is a little more.

Squirrel. Probably one of the better shots here. Without having a play I'm not sure what I would do on this one.

Dewy grass. I think this is an interesting shot, it's well composed nice choice of focus. Well exposed. The only issue, is there seems to be some dew on the lens blurring part of the image. I know astrophotographers have issues with that, they tend to use things like hairdryers to keep the lens warmer so it doesn't get the dew settling. But then you're not dealing with the exposure lengths they are so maybe just checking your shot in more detail would have told you it hadn't quite worked and you needed to clean the lens...

As a disclaimer: Yes I take photos, but I'm not the best at it, I'm certainly not qualified to do a proper critique. This is merely my personal opinion. Feel free to ignore it but since it took me so long to write out on my iPhone, I do hope you learn at least something from it. None of what I say is intended as an attack, just pointing out things I think you would do well to learn. Good luck with the next batch and I look forward to seeing them.

Just added you as a contact on flickr.

 

[Carp4U]

Thanks for your comments Chris.

As you mentioned, apart from the macro shots I do tend to use my own aperture/shutter speed settings for the exposure.

Thanks for spending the time writing that out because I definitely have learnt a lot from what you said about the rule of thirds. I agree that sometimes having things in the center of the screen can be a bit uninteresting.
The Comma Butterfly shot, the more I look at it I realise that if the background/foreground or the butterfly itself was in focus then the picture would be quite good (I think!)
The red squirrel shot which I said as not being very good is simply because I wasn't using a tripod so the picture wasn't very sharply focused, and due to me being in quite a dark forest the lighting wasn't good to highlight the orange colours and the angle doesn't show the whole of the animal.
The under-exposed butterfly shot is another important thing to highlight, I used a 'Natural Green' pre-set setting on the camera with the macro focus but as you mentioned they are hard to photograph because they move a lot, and meant that sometimes I was actually shadowing the butterfly with my hand or body so it looked darker.
The dewy grass one is my personal favourite but the little blurred spec on the lens would have been me getting a drop of the dew on the lens by accidentally touching the grass and this is something that I presume would be a matter of just being more careful next time.

I'll accept your Flickr contact ASAP, and even if you say you're not a proper photographer or in the position to give good critique, I highly disagree because you seem very knowledgeable about the subject and the advice you gave to a novice like me is greatly appreciated. Although at the end of the day, personal opinions are what matter most and all criticism/opinions are greatly appreciated! Thanks, because every photographer has to start somewhere and novices need to learn from somewhere. I'm in a lovely place in France on holiday with about 10 types of very rare bird species nearby, like Montagues, Hen Harriers and Kingfishers, so the next batch will be relatively soon! Thanks again

 

[chrisbassist]

Excellent, I worry coz some people ask for critique then get upset and defensive when you do.

I remember trying a butterfly shot ages ago, and I failed miserably. So getting nice sharp shots of them is a nice achievement.

What's your workflow? Do you shoot in raw? What about on the computer?

 

[Carp4U]

Excellent, I worry coz some people ask for critique then get upset and defensive when you do.

I remember trying a butterfly shot ages ago, and I failed miserably. So getting nice sharp shots of them is a nice achievement.

What's your workflow? Do you shoot in raw? What about on the computer?

No not at all, criticism is how you improve and learn new things!
Thanks, butterflies are great to photograph but require a bit of perseverance to get clear shots.
What do you mean by workflow and shooting in raw? I don't quite understand what you mean but if you're asking if I use any editing software on my computer then no I don't because I don't have any. I sometimes use the Picnik online software as part of Flickr to touch up shots if I need to though.

Will get some more shots and upload them soon, so we can see if I'm picking up on your advice in my photos which I am trying to do like using the 'rule of thirds' etc.

 

[chrisbassist]

Ok, A few brief explanations.

When I say raw, it means most cameras have a file format which saves all the information recorded which is usually about 3 times more than the highest quality jpeg. Think of the jpeg as the finished phto, whereas the raw file is the digital negative. Raw allows you to tweak things a little more, maybe bump the exposure up a little or change the White balance settings before it gets turned into a jpeg which means you don't lose as much quality by doing it.

When I say workflow basically yes it's about post processing. But I also include everything from capture to finished photo. As an example, my workflow goes something like this:

1. Research. If I want to shoot a specific animal, then I research it so I know a bit about the animal, which hopefully sparks ideas of how to approach the subject. If it's a place or building then I'll find other pictures to see what I think works, what doesn't, and what has already been done. It means I can think about my shot before I get there.
2. Based on step 1, I decide what lenses or other equipment might want to take.
3. Again, based on research I go at what I think will be the right time of day for the shot I want, usually sunset time for my tastes, but maybe you're a morning person and like sunrise or if you want outdoor portraits you might want to go when there's more light etc.
Step4. When I arrive I walk around and take in the views without a camera in front of my face. Looking at how the light falls and just enjoy the time.
Step5. Setup whatever my best guess is for the photo
Step6. Take test shots to get all the settings right where I want them. Then delete them.
Step7. Take the photos. Once I have the shot I had in my head (even if I had to change everything to get there) then I try something new. If I've just taken a landscape I'll swap to a longer lens, and pick out a detail. If I've just taken a macro shot I'll step back put on a wide lens and show more...
Step8. Transfer photos onto computer. For me that means aperture but it could just as easily be something like google picasa (which my wife uses) which is free and worth looking at for really basic tweaks.
Step9. I check the White balance, look for noise, etc. If I have lots of shots then I generally look through for the best shots and only edit those. I also do any cropping in this stage.
Step10. Once I have a shot I'm
Happy with (or a few or lots...) I make a copy and go crazy on post processing. Playing with the saturation and sharpening playing with plugins etc to see just what I can do. I've ruined lots of good photos this way but also discovered a few cool effects that I like.

Lastly I decide what to do with the finished photo. Sometimes it goes to flickr sometimes my site, sometimes I print it (I have that windmill shot framed above my bed) sometimes I just email to someone who might like them more than me. Sometimes they just sit there on my computer as evidence of my learning process.

 

[Carp4U]

I can happily say that your big ten step list is similar to something I follow myself sometimes.
As for me the pictures go on my website, flickr, email them to family/friends to show them, and I even post some on Facebook and have gained a reputation as being a 'really good' photographer which is nice!
All my pics go onto my laptops external hard-drive, which with 500GB has plenty of space and therefore I don't keep any on my laptop to save space and make them safer.

I've not had much time to go out and get some new pics following your new advice, although I did get one or two. Tell me what you think of these damselflies:

Damselfly Love Heart! by Alex Staniforth: Wildlife/Nature Photography
I tried to follow what you were saying about rule of thirds and composure. What do you think of my efforts?

 

[chrisbassist]

Much better composition.

I'm gonna have to view it on a real computer so I can see it full size. But it looks ok. I always think the closer the better with these sorts of things but I guess you're fairly limited in how close you can get.

Ooh yes, today I'm ordering a giottos vitruvian. Can't wait to actually have a half decent tripod (even if I do end up replacing the ball head)

Anyway, I'll be back later on a bigger screen.

 

[chrisbassist]

sorry it took so long. Don't do much "pleasure" browsing on my main computer so I don't think to check these sites.

Looking closer (via flickr) I think I'd still crop this. and when looking closer the insects aren't quite as sharp as I thought. (when you're talking macro depth of field is usually terribly small). anyway, instead of explaining... here's my suggested crop: