For Your Critique: Image #18

This image was created with the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II lens (hand held at 200mm) and the Canon EOS-1D Mark IV. ISO 50. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/4 sec. at f/14 in Tv Mode. Amazingly, this fall color blur was created in the driveway of my home in central Florida where a single maple tree showed some nice reds and yellows in December of 2010. I panned diagonally downward while jiggling the camera to achieve the flame look. Denise Ippolito taught me this technique (and lots of otheres) while we were working on “A Guide to Pleasing Blurs.” Central Sensor/AI Servo Rear Focus and release. Click here if you missed the Rear Focus Tutorial. Lens/camera body Micro-adjustment: -10. For a greater appreciation of the image, click on the photo. Then click on the enlarged version to close it.

For Your Critique: Image #18

The image is presented here for your critique; feel free to praise it or rip it to shreds. Would you keep it or delete it? Let us know why either way, what you like or what you hate. What would you have done differently?

Over the course of the next week or so I will present two additional images in this series for a total of twenty in all. The last will be followed by several revelations including two major ones.

One of the very best ways to grow as a photographer is to look at as many good images as possible. I do that often in books, by checking out contest result web sites, by critiquing images on Bird Photographers.Net (BPN), by visiting the web sites of the world’s best photographers, and during image critiques and by encouraging image sharing on our BAA Instructional Photo-Tours (IPTs).

BIRDS AS ART BULLETIN #389

BIRDS AS ART Bulletin #389 is on line and can be accessed here in spectacular white on black format. Here are the features:

• BOSQUE MID-NOVEMBER REPORT
• REMEMBERING
• Colorada Urban Wildlife Photo Club
• LOTS OF e-MAILS
• IPT UPDATES

Earn Free Contest Entries and Support both the Bulletins and the Blog by making all your B & H purchases here.

More and more folks are earning multiple contest entries with their B & H purchases. See here for details on that. Eleven great categories, 34 winning and honored images, and prize pools valued in excess of $20,000. Click here to visit the competition home page.

Shopper’s Guide

Below is a list of the gear used to create the image in today’s blog post. Thanks a stack to all who have used the Shopper’s Guide links to purchase their gear as a thank you for all the free information that we bring you on the Blog and in the Bulletins. Before you purchase anything be sure to check out the advice in our Shopper’s Guide.

Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II lens. Man, I am loving this lens on my shoulder with the 2X III teleconverter. I also use it a lot with the 1.4X III TC.
Canon EOS-1D Mark IV professional digital camera body. My two Mark IVs are my workhorse digital camera bodies.

And from the BAA On-line Store:

The Lens Align Mark II. I use the Lens Align Mark II pretty much religiously to micro-adjust all of my gear an average of once a month and always before a major trip. Enjoy our free comprehensive tutorial here.
Canon EOS-1D Mark IV User’s Guide. Learn to use your Mark IV the way that I use mine. Also available for the 7D and the Mark III here.
A Guide to Pleasing Blurs. Denise Ippolito and yours truly share dozens of the techniques that they use to create pleasingly blurred images of a great variety of natural history subjects.