A few photos of animals

[Neil K]

Well, I say animals, I mean a few birds and a dog . Went for a walk down by the river today and tried to capture some birds (seagulls?) in action, and here are my attempts. One thing I had trouble with was making the birds 'pop' from the background in post-processing: I tried motion blur and b&w. Whilst down there I also met a very friendly dog, who also appeared ownerless .

Constructive criticism would be useful.

General wide-ish shot:

Attempt at foreground interest:

Motion blur (I was proud to capture this with the big shutter delay on the S3000):

 

[Neil K]

Black and white:

And finally the cool dog:

 

[lee7]

I'm sorry to say it mate but these pictures do nothing at all for me, I can see your idea in the 2nd shot but it's not worked, most of the image is out of focus and its a big distraction in my eyes. Also the bird in the third shot is hard to pick out as it blends into the boats in the b/ground. The whole image looks blurred.

I don't mean to cause any offense but any critique is good critique.

 

[Neil K]

No offense taken. Thanks for the crit.

 

[Deleted member 11679]

Nice try, here are my thoughts:

No.1-
Sort of a typical harbour shot, but doesn't real have a great deal of interest going on in the picture. The foreground and background don't really scream anything specific out.

No.2-
An interesting attempt but these sort of shots can often not have the impact intended, I think quite a lot of people view these shots as mistakes rather than the intended blur/focus points; the foreground in this picture is also a mix of blur and sharpness which hasn't quite come off.

No.3-
You've done well to capture this bird with your equipment, I know how hard I found it when I had that type of camera...settings for birds to equal sharp = as fast a shutter speed as possible (or as low as you dare if panning.)

No.4-
I like this a lot, a combination of rural and birds in the photo works, and add in the black and white you can't go wrong...I think you've got this just right

No.5-
Always nice to see portrait style shots of dogs, and I really like the highlight on his eye.

These are just my opinions, I hope I havn't caused offence because these are encouraging and its nice to get out and shoot. I am not to into nature myself however looking at these from outside of that interest side of things this is what I think.