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Color or BW?

Jonas

Active member
This is a hard one Rafa. I have checked your bird two times. Seeing nobody biting made me wonder a little. I prefer the B&W one.

Then we have the problem; I don't like any of them. How do you tell somebody they posted two versions of an image I personally would have deleted when browsing through the thumbs in the raw converter?

I think animals as well as humans mostly are better when not taken from the back. The background is distracting as it both frames and cuts the poor bird and the dark circular thing end up as interesting after having looked at the image for a while. The sitting pin is nicely rendered (and processed). Both the versions are oversharpened and possibly also got too much of local contrast enhancement.

I don't know why you got no other reply but I'm sure you can get a better image of this little bird, including a better background, if you try again.

The last time I expressed some negative thoughts about an image here I got some heavy critique for that. Well, if so, so be it.

regards,

/Jonas
 

Rawfa

Active member
Jonas, as long as it is constructive criticism like yours I can take it any day of the week. You've expressed your opinion in a very clear manner and explained your points thoroughly.
Anyone who knows me around this forum knows I'm not a nature photographer at all (as a matter of fact this is probably the first picture of a bird I've ever taken), but it IS something I would really like doing more often and you have to start sometime. I've just received this 70-300mm and I was super happy about taking it to the zoo this weekend (I figured it would be better to start with animals that don't move much first hehehe) but I've got some bad flu and ended up staying at home all weekend...I was very frustrated and this little bird was the only thing I've managed to shoot so far (it was actually THE only shot I've taken of the bird).
Now, just to defend my self a little bit...this is a massive crop of the original photo, hence the over sharpened look. As for the framing, it's funny that you said you found the background distracting as it drew my attention for being so much like a camera's "framing grid" (I'm not sure if this is the word).
Anyway, you should not be "afraid" about sharing your thoughts as long as it is in a constructive manner. There are a lot of professionals around but there are also a lot of enthusiasts, amateurs and beginners. Everybody is here to share, learn and most importantly to have a good time.
 

hot

Active member
Ouuuuuu ... a photo from a time before KODAK invented color film! Anno 1921?
 

Jonas

Active member
Jonas, as long as it is constructive criticism like yours I can take it any day of the week. You've expressed your opinion in a very clear manner and explained your points thoroughly.
(...)
Everybody is here to share, learn and most importantly to have a good time.
OK, it's good you take it that way.

Ouuuuuu ... a photo from a time before KODAK invented color film! Anno 1921?
I guess Knallberto also is having a good time. You can always trust him, lol.

Cheers,

/Jonas
 
J

jcoffin

Guest
Personally I find the color version a bit better. The background is rather distracting in any case, and in the B&W version, it seems (to me) the the bird blends into the background. The background remains fairly monochromatic even the color version, helping keep the bird from blending in quite so badly.

At least to me, the background also looks much more natural in the color version. Especially in the rectangle at the top, right-hand corner, the B&W version shows what seems to me some pretty noticeable patterning; if I saw that coming out of the printer, I'd groan a little bit about needing to clean the heads.

In most other respects, I have to agree with Jonas though -- neither one jumps out at me as particularly great.
 

pegelli

Well-known member
I also like the colour version better, but agree with Jonas it will never be a great picture, mainly due to the background. On the other hand the fact it's shot from the back doesn't bother me.

PP wise I think I would have given it a bit more fill light and then increased the black point to get a bit more detail in the area around his (or her) eye
 
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