Our owners of this forum just added a new forum which I know will interest many here.
https://birdphotographers.net/
https://birdphotographers.net/
Bird photography
- Thread starter havasu
- Start date
Help Support Flooring Forum - DIY & Professional:
I've got two, but they don't fly much these days because I don't get it on the highway as often as I did years ago.
Thanks for sharing Hav! Well that was an interesting first experience. It appears they are primarily a U.K. based site. I think they are still working out some of the "issues" with the change. When I first looked, many of the forums hadn't had posts for 2-3 years. Really thought they were just starting back up or something. I posted a couple of macro images in the macro forum. Literally every picture that was there had been posted by the mod. Anyway, I almost instantly start getting polite, but unnecessary criticism on my posts...my DOF (depth of field) is incorrect, I've over sharpened, I should do this, I should do that. I'm fine with it, but I'm literally looking at his posts and they are no better or worse than my own. I'm thinking...."ok", I really didn't ask for an opinion. My philosophy has always been, if somebody asks for CC, by all means, but if they don't and you don't like the image, just keep scrolling. No harm, no fowl. It's art. There are never going to be two people who edit, compose, and shoot the exact same way. Anyway, we'll give it a little time hopefully he'll find other things to work on. I honestly think he's just bored or lonely because he was the only one posting in his forum.
Was kind of hilarious because the Admin hits me with "Wow, amazing shot!" and the forum mod starts telling me everything I should have done like the shot was total crap.
Anyway, thought you might be interested to hear some feedback.
Here's one of the I posted that apparently wasn't quite up to snuff... White-faced Meadowhawk Dragonfly. (I took this from about 20 -25 feet away while hand holding about 11 lbs. of camera and lens, not on a tripod...
It's funny how people that can't do what you do become critics. 
The dragonfly is centered.... You must'nt do that!
You don't want photographers criticizing you. They aren't buying an image. They are critiquing fine details that most humans would never notice.
I have my own OCD, so I get that.
I shot everything on KR 64 and sometimes 25. Striving for perfection in focus led me up spend $1250 for a 300mm lens, $240 for a matching 1.4 teleconverter and $950 for a 30 to 35 wide angle zoom.
I loved those lenses. They made photography fun again.
......still, I wanted sharper photos. Why was this not happening? I wanted perfection!
Everyone but me loved my images. I have some good ones and I loved them too.
My problem?
Shooting the photos that I did would have benefitted by using a larger format camera, not by buying those lenses.
That said....buying better, larger format cameras, film and their lenses would have bankrupted me. It's a very expensive hobby.
It took me years to understand that my OCD with the sharp focus I wanted wasn't that important.
The image, the color balance and lighting combined with the depth of field and how the main focal point was centered .....or off centered, as per the 1/3rds rule..... That was far more important than focus for most photos.
Forget the extremists. If at first glance, the photo is awsum...... Then it's awsum.
I'll dig up one that was converted from KR25 to digital. It's one of my favorites. Never was happy getting the focus or sharpness to the level that wanted.
I'll try and bring it up.
The dragonfly is centered.... You must'nt do that!
You don't want photographers criticizing you. They aren't buying an image. They are critiquing fine details that most humans would never notice.
I have my own OCD, so I get that.
I shot everything on KR 64 and sometimes 25. Striving for perfection in focus led me up spend $1250 for a 300mm lens, $240 for a matching 1.4 teleconverter and $950 for a 30 to 35 wide angle zoom.
I loved those lenses. They made photography fun again.
......still, I wanted sharper photos. Why was this not happening? I wanted perfection!
Everyone but me loved my images. I have some good ones and I loved them too.
My problem?
Shooting the photos that I did would have benefitted by using a larger format camera, not by buying those lenses.
That said....buying better, larger format cameras, film and their lenses would have bankrupted me. It's a very expensive hobby.
It took me years to understand that my OCD with the sharp focus I wanted wasn't that important.
The image, the color balance and lighting combined with the depth of field and how the main focal point was centered .....or off centered, as per the 1/3rds rule..... That was far more important than focus for most photos.
Forget the extremists. If at first glance, the photo is awsum...... Then it's awsum.
I'll dig up one that was converted from KR25 to digital. It's one of my favorites. Never was happy getting the focus or sharpness to the level that wanted.
I'll try and bring it up.
The image is sharper than this photo taken off of my 12 year old notebook screen, but I realized when blown up to 10 by 12 or once, 16 by 20....... That critical sharpness took second place to the colors.
.......now that said, of course I'd rather have owned a large format camera for this image.
Don't worry one bit about others critique. Sure, it can be helpful to learn from it...... But you're well beyond the learning stages.
.......now that said, of course I'd rather have owned a large format camera for this image.
Don't worry one bit about others critique. Sure, it can be helpful to learn from it...... But you're well beyond the learning stages.
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Beautiful and great composition Hi! I don’t take it to heart if people don’t like what I do because at the end of the day it’s what I like that matters to me. I was more concerned that the mod is probably going to intimidate some folks from joining or posting by being a bit over zealous. There are some really good photographers who don’t deal with criticism well and are too afraid to post their work as a result. Imagine if I had never posted anything before and that was the first interaction I had with posting a photo.The image is sharper than this photo taken off of my 12 year old notebook screen, but I realized when blown up to 10 by 12 or once, 16 by 20....... That critical sharpness took second place to the colors.
.......now that said, of course I'd rather have owned a large format camera for this image.
Don't worry one bit about others critique. Sure, it can be helpful to learn from it...... But you're well beyond the learning stages.
He legitimately seems well intentioned, and from what I can gather, I think he is an older English gentleman. They can sometimes be a bit different in their methods and criticisms, at least that’s what I’ve found from other photography sites and forums I belong to. It’s all good and I did take some things away from what he shared. Was just a bit taken aback at first because I wasn’t really expecting feedback. There are some really good photographers over there so I’m sure it will be a helpful and fun experience!
. Really great photo and keep sharing your work I love to see it!
