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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
3/26/2006 8:58:03 PM
Jim, just came across this! It's great! Nice creation, very seamless.
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| Photo By: Jim Goldstein
(K:21230)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
3/26/2006 8:48:14 PM
How many birds had to die to make that feathered bolo? Where did you get so many california condor feathers? What do you want us to critique? The image is perfect, Phil.
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Photo By: Phillip Cohen
(K:10561)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
3/26/2006 5:06:45 PM
A couple of these will show up in early May and nest on a small island in our lake near the border of Denali NP. Chicks hatch around the first of July, and if they survive predation by gulls or bald eagles, they will head back out to sea with their parents by mid September.
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| Photo By: Yamil Saenz
(K:12434)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
3/8/2006 3:51:45 AM
Yamil, we're presently in northern British Columbia, about 2 days from Alaska. The motel where we're staying has a wireless network, so I had some time to review a few pages of nature photos on UseFilm. This photo really stood out as an excellent one! Congratulations on getting such nice photos of so many subjects in such a short time in Florida! This gets an SC from me.
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| Photo By: Yamil Saenz
(K:12434)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
2/25/2006 2:24:04 AM
When I posted this image, I should have thanked Yamil Saenz for showing me where to photograph in the San Francisco Area! Yamil spent a day with us, showing us some of the better spots to photograph birds. Once again, I have to thank Usefilm for helping me meet new friends, and find new areas to photograph!
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| Photo By: Steve Kaufman
(K:2748)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
1/12/2006 4:19:44 AM
Beautiful Marcus! These guys are still around then? Hope a few are left by the time we get over there!
It gets an SC from me.
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| Photo By: Marcus Armani
(K:36599)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
12/26/2005 5:58:32 AM
Hello Jim: I have mixed results when shooting panoramas. This one took lots of work in Photoshop. Apparently, one of the pitfalls of FF sensors, is there is a bit of light drop-off on the edges (vignetting). I had to adjust for that on each individual image before stiching them together. I have had a bit more luck with D2X files. When I shoot panos, I meter for the middle image, or the middle of the light/dark, and then shoot all on Manual (use Auto, and you'll have different exposures that are very difficult to merge). I originally printed this image on my Epson 2200, at 13 X 44, and it's now framed in a friend's home (they asked me for the image when they saw it on my computer; it's a few miles from thier home). Best Wishes for the New Year! We will be coming through your area probably some time in early/mid February. We are currently in the DC area, and will be heading south, then west, heading up the Pacific Coast towards Seattle area to visit with my wife's family. Would like to stop by and say "Hi". Steve (steve@naturephotography.net)
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| Photo By: Steve Kaufman
(K:2748)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
12/6/2005 5:52:08 PM
Yamil, the snowy owl required more patience than most of my other photos. It took two days to find the nest, and then it took a day of slowly moving a blind closer and closer until we were near the nest. I also had a strange experience while working on the owl. I first saw an owl fly, and went looking for it. I saw a light colored thing about a mile away, but the heat refraction was so bad I couldn't make out what it was. As I got closer, I knew what I was seeing was hair, not feathers. My brain said BEAR, but I reasoned no bear would be out in the middle of wet tundra where there was little to eat. I was hoping maybe I'd found a fox den. As I got within 30 yards of it, a large light colored brown bear stood up, stretched, and then lay back down. All I'd been seeing was the very top of it's head behind a small hummock. I quickly reversed direction, and gave up hunting for the owl that day.
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| Photo By: Steve Kaufman
(K:2748)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
11/30/2005 5:18:19 PM
Chris, I don't see any problems with the colors on this image. What problems were you having with profiles? ProPhoto RGB is a wide gamut color space, and a good one to choose to archive your Tiff images. A good explanation of this color space may be found at: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/prophoto-rgb.sh tml
The web uses SRGB. When you are working on a photo for the web, convert your image to SRGB to see what it will look like when it's uploaded. In doing your conversion with PhotoShop, if you select "Convert to Profile" then select "Absolute Colormetric" you should get an SRGB image which pretty closely matches the original ProPhoto RGB profile.
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| Photo By: Chris Hunter
(K:25634)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
11/27/2005 10:29:07 PM
Very nice image Aivar! This gets a SC from me.
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| Photo By: Aivar Mikko
(K:573)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
11/27/2005 2:49:13 PM
No Jim, I didn't mind at all that you tinkered with my image.
Steve
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| Photo By: Steve Kaufman
(K:2748)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
11/25/2005 3:07:40 PM
The conditions have to be just right to have the frost crystals grow. It needs to be very cold and still. Any wind and they are immediately crumbled. Trying to photograph them can be frustrating, as when you get close to them, convection from your own body heat causes a bit of wind, and they move. Jim, it's an early morning photo, so the color isn't pure white.
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| Photo By: Steve Kaufman
(K:2748)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
11/23/2005 5:08:02 AM
yes, Nour, it's the 80-200 f28 ED IF AF
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| Photo By: Steve Kaufman
(K:2748)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
11/22/2005 4:29:37 PM
Marcus, though I know you prefer the flight shots, I like this image better than the flying male. The flight shot has a distracting background IMO, but this one with a beautiful reflection is perfect. An SC from me.
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| Photo By: Marcus Armani
(K:36599)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
11/18/2005 5:06:56 PM
Excellent in every way. It gets an SC from me. Thanks for sharing this!
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| Photo By: Clifton Mair
(K:363)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
11/12/2005 6:50:45 PM
I did know that these little guys had toxins, but I was surprised when my lips and tongue turned numb. One note of interest: if poison dart frogs are kept in captivity (zoos) they lose their toxic compounds. Apparently the toxins come from food they eat, and lacking their natural foods, they also lose the toxins.
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| Photo By: Steve Kaufman
(K:2748)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
11/11/2005 2:48:54 PM
Jim, I've been in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge a number of times. My wife has a mountain named for her there (Mount Mary). Her father spent time there in the early 50's doing research for two books he wrote, birds of the arctic and mammals of the arctic. He named several geographic features for his daughter, son, and wife. ANWR is a beautiful area, but it is quite costly to go there, as you must charter a plane (roundtrip around $5-6000), I'd be happy to give you any advice. Contact me directly: steve@naturephotography.net
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| Photo By: Steve Kaufman
(K:2748)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
11/8/2005 3:37:09 PM
Babak, I won't keep giving you staff choice awards (other folks would complain that I was biased, which of course I am), but I will say that you are one of the best bird photographers on usefilm, joining the likes of Marcus Armani and Yamil Saenz. Thanks again for showing us the beautiful nature of Iran!
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| Photo By: Seyed Babak Musavi
(K:496)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
11/7/2005 3:12:01 PM
Huoyi, you have done a few excellent portraits of large shorebirds (the dowitcher was very nice). My only complaint is I believe you are cropping the images too tightly. I've noticed that this image and the dowitcher were cropped square, at 800X800 pixels. I personally feel they might be better if you left a bit more area around the bird (unless of course there are terribly distracting elements in the area you cropped out). The images are sharp, and you have captured some behavior which is good.
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| Photo By: Huoyi Zhang
(K:3)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
11/6/2005 4:04:06 PM
Lee, when I bought my first D2X, I was extremely disappointed with Nikon to want me to buy a $100 program to convert raw photos from a new $5000 camera. But, at that time, no other raw converter was available for D2X files. I bought Nikon Capture, and was even more disappointed when it brought my G4 laptop to it's knees when I tried to browse more than 30 files at one time. Bibble soon came out, and I found it to be much faster than NC, and it worked with larger folders of files, and batch processed fairly well. I bought Bibble, and waited eagerly for Adobe to make Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) work for NEF's. When Photoshop CS2 came out, they said it supported D2X NEF's, but as it turned out, it did not read the white balance as set by the camera. Now ACR2 does read the white balance. ACR works much faster than NC, and for most subjects I find the Tiff files it produces to be good. In some cases though, NC or Bibble seem to do a better job. I think basically what it comes down to is you'll still need to do some work on some images using any program. NC is the slowest of the programs I've tried/purchased. Bibble is very good, but I'm just not used to the interface. I had been using Photoshop with ACR for the past year, and knew that program the best, so naturally it's the one I still prefer to process the majority of my D2X files.
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| Photo By: Steve Kaufman
(K:2748)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
11/5/2005 4:43:01 PM
Yamil, if I didn't give this shot an SC everyone else here would probably think I was crazy. This is an incredible shot! Thanks for showing it to us!
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| Photo By: Yamil Saenz
(K:12434)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
11/4/2005 4:41:50 PM
Babak, you continue to post excellent images of birds I would enjoy seeing and photographing. I know that you must have a lot of patience and a good knowledge of the behavior of the birds you are photographing.
I'd have to agree somewhat with Soroosh Ghaffarian, the images you have posted are somewhat muted, at least as viewed on my screen. I have similar problems with images I upload to usefilm. Unless I intentionally make them darker with levels, and increase color with curves, the image will appear light when I upload it to usefilm. One problem is that I work in Adobe RGB color space, but the web uses SRGB. So, I always convert images I want to upload to SRGB first, and then see what it looks like. I still find I need to make the image darker than what I normally would to upload it to Usefilm.
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| Photo By: Seyed Babak Musavi
(K:496)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
11/2/2005 4:33:43 PM
Seyed, this is another very good photo showing behavior as well as a nice portrait of the bird. I am very happy to see some beautiful photos of the nature in Iran. In our polarized world, few of us in the west even think about the posibilities of wildlife in Iran. I'm really happy to see your work, and wish you well on completing your book on the birds of Iran. As I've told a few other excellent photographers on this site, I don't like to give awards to one individual too often, but this one deserves a SC.
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| Photo By: Seyed Babak Musavi
(K:496)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
11/1/2005 5:58:13 PM
I really like it Ann. It gets an SC from me.
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| Photo By: Ann Nida
(K:45248)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
10/31/2005 4:34:13 PM
Very nice image Seyed! As an editor of the nature section, I feel this is worthy of a Staff Choice award. Keep up the good work!
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| Photo By: Seyed Babak Musavi
(K:496)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
10/31/2005 3:23:34 PM
Yamil: In transfering e-mail from my laptop to my desktop computer I lost some messages as well as your e-mail address, and the address of Marcus. We are thinking of taking a road trip in the very near future, and may come down your way.
Steve
steve@naturephotography.net
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| Photo By: Steve Kaufman
(K:2748)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
10/31/2005 2:54:41 PM
Ann: March and April have long days in comparison to November>February which have very little daylight. The area around Colorado Lake gets very deep snow, but that snowbelt isn't very large. It runs from around Hurricane (the big high bridge over a canyon) to the middle of Broad Pass. Cantwell and north is much dryer, as is the area around Wasilla. There have been some northern lights this year, but I've only a few nice displays so far. We are now in Homer, and it is a bit south of the good displays (Fairbanks area is much better), and we often have cloudy skies in winter.
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| Photo By: Steve Kaufman
(K:2748)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
10/30/2005 4:23:52 PM
Yamil, nice to see another subject besides all the hawks and kites that keep making me jealous! Beautiful work once again. Al has asked me to refrain from giving EC's, but I still can award SC's, and this one gets one from me.
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| Photo By: Yamil Saenz
(K:12434)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
10/28/2005 4:04:11 PM
I was traveling for a few days, between this location and our home in Homer, so I missed answering Jim's question. I still have the Kodak SLR/n, though it has been pretty much replaced by two Nikon D2X's. The faster frames/sec make the Nikon cameras better for stopping action. I like the files the Nikon makes, but at times I prefer the full frame sensor of the Kodak.
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| Photo By: Steve Kaufman
(K:2748)
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Critique By:
Steve Kaufman (K:2748)
10/27/2005 9:30:19 PM
Hello Arnaldo! Spud died of kidney failure on September 10th. We buried him by the lake in a pretty spot. A week later we bought a new sled dog puppy, who we've named Lucy. She is 14 weeks old now, and a bundle of energy and continuous joy. I just left Colorado Lake yesterday, and am now back in Homer. We had 2 feet of snow at the lake, and there's a foot here in Homer. Winter is definitely here. Best Wishes, Steve
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| Photo By: Steve Kaufman
(K:2748)
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