NBPS Flickr Contest (Image by Timothy Brooks)

Posted on November 7, 2010 by ecanfield
 

Frog, originally uploaded by timilini.

Nice Shot!
I love the colors and the details in the eyes!
The shallow depth of field in this shot works really well here too.
What would make this shot super awesome would be to try and move the grass somehow before you shoot the image, the slight blurry green in the foreground is somewhat distracting.

On this topic though since you’ve already made the image and it would be quite difficult to be able to go back and re-shoot it, if you have photoshop I suggest selecting the blurry blade of grass with the lasso tool then select curves. Where it says RGB on the scroll bar, go down to green and move the upper right part of the curve down until it blends better. If you then go up to filter>blur>Gaussian Blur and move it up to about a radius of 35 pixles, it will just bring down the green a touch to make it not so distracting. Hope this helps (try it out and if you have any questions I’d be happy to help).
Other than that this is a great shot!
keep shooting
-Emma Canfield

(UPDATE)

edited file; looks good!

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NBPS Flickr Contest (Image by Ben Fisher)

Posted on October 15, 2010 by ecanfield
 

IMG_7246, originally uploaded by BenLFisher.

Nice capture Ben!
love the close up of this bird. the sharp focus in the eye is great, and the depth of field is used really well here too, the viewer just focuses on the face of the bird.
The only pointer I would try and give you is to try and more yourself enough so we don’t see the background at all; so its just the in focus face and the our of focus body (no background). That would have made this picture perfect!

Keep up the great work Ben! & keep posting everyone!

-Emma Canfield

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NBPS Flickr Contest (Image by Nathan Sottung)

Posted on October 7, 2010 by ecanfield
 

Colorful Scales, originally uploaded by nks12345.

This is a pretty solid image Nathan! Great job!
You do need to work on the focus for this image though the blur on the bottom of the wing is bothering me. You probably need to close down your f-stop, instead of say this is shot at f 4.0, try f8 or 11. But other than that for a beginner at Macro this is very nice!
You also have a blue-orange composition here, great use of color!

Keep up the great work!
-Emma Canfield

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NBPS Flickr Contest (Image by Evan Pagano)

Posted on September 28, 2010 by ecanfield
 

Shake It Off, originally uploaded by Evan 49.

yet again Evan, great job!
I love this moment you captured here. and that you got a couple water droplets in mid-air. The slightly disheveled look the bird has is fabulous, sometimes we see too many shots of the bird in flight, or looking clean and neat. This does the opposite and made for a great capture. The colors and depth of field work well in this image too, by having the image blurred in the background the viewers eye focuses more on the subject; and the natural subtle colors of the bird are very pleasing to the eye.

thanks Evan, keep shooting!

-Emma Canfield

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NBPS Flickr Contest (Image by Tucker Lutter)

Posted on September 19, 2010 by ecanfield
 

Tarantula!, originally uploaded by BackpackingBirder.

This is a really great shot. Despite the fact that the tarantula is centralized in the frame, it is really powerful. I love how the tarantula looks as though it is lit from below as well as above. The only thing I would change about this image is in lower left corner: this area seems a bit lighter than the rest of the image (darken it maybe to match the others,) and the light bits around the abdomen look a bit over-exposed. If you shot this in raw (or even if not, but you get a better outcome if you do), there is a great tool (called “recovery” in photoshop) that brings back details in the hot spots in a non-destructive way (instead of using the burn tool.) If you use the adjustment brush in camera raw, you can also bring back details and darken it up a bit to make it uniform with the rest of the image. I also like the almost monochromatic take to this image!

Thanks for the great image, and keep up the good work!
-Emma Canfield

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NBPS Flickr Contest (Image by Timothy Brooks)

Posted on September 12, 2010 by ecanfield
 

Flower, originally uploaded by timilini.

I really enjoy this image; I love the fact that you did a great job keeping the flower in focus and you were able to have the line from the stem flow in the same direction as the subtle strokes in the background of the greens and browns.
The luminance of the contrasting colors of the flower being lighter and standing out in comparison of the more muted colors in the background are great too.
Great job and keep shooting!
-Emma

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Audubon Birds in Focus Competition!!!

Posted on August 26, 2010 by ecanfield

LAST CALL FOR ENTRIES!

Audubon Birds in Focus Awards: CLICK TO ENTER

DEADLINE: ENTER YOUR BIRD PHOTOS NOW until SEPT. 7, 2010!

The prize for the Youth (age 13 to 17 as of May 15, 2010) winner is an I-POD TOUCH with Audubon Guide apps, and the winner of the Amateur category wins a trip to Peru! Nature’s Best Photography is working in alliance with Audubon magazine in running this contest. The finalists will be published in both Nature’s Best Photography and Audubon magazines. Need help uploading photos?  E-mail us at:  BirdsInFocus@naturesbestphotography.com

GOOD LUCK!

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NBPS Flickr contest: Lindsey Buchmann

Posted on August 18, 2010 by ecanfield

No use without photographer’s permission under any circumstances.

original post on FlickR from HERE

“The picture was taken in Livermore California on an evening in September 2009. I used a Canon PowerShot SD1000, and I had it on the macro setting. Taken by me, (Lindsey Buchmann) at 12 years old.”
This is a really lovely shot, Lindsey! I really appreciate the way you framed the flower using the rule of thirds, and the fact that the rose is so purely pink, apparently all of the same color, is a great capture too. The image is just simply the rose, and you don’t confuse the viewer by adding any distracting elements from whatever is behind the rose in the scene. The viewer can just let their eyes follow the delightfully complex lines of the petals, and enjoy it as is.

The only suggestion I would give you for this is that in the soft blurry part in the middle [under the center part of the rose], there seems to be a bit of noise. Since this is an image you probablly could set up and sit for a while to compose, and not an instantanious moment kind of picture, you could have used a tripod, and used a slower ISO, so there would be much less noise [although if this is a jpeg file, that might be your problem too].

But other than that this is a really beautiful image, and the lighting is perfect.  Keep up the great work Lindsey!

-Emma Canfield

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NBPS Flickr contest: Tobias Hayashi

Posted on August 10, 2010 by ecanfield

No use without photographer’s permission under any circumstances.

original post on FlickR from HERE
Photo Info: “This image was taken an outing with some school friends to see and observe these Eastern Water Dragons for a school project. In this image, the Water Dragon was resting on a (man-made?) log, and posing in a typical dragon pose with a slightly angled head. This one was quite tame, so no problems with getting the camera on it. Here, I decided to focus in on the head (it can be very hard work getting the whole Dragon in the frame due to the long, tapered tail). By focusing on the tail, I could bring out the details in the dragons head and neck, particularly the amazing eye. The setting had naturally very dark grey surroundings, meaning that the detail and subtle colour of the Dragon stood out very nicely. A bit of levels work in PaintShopPro post-shutter enhanced this a little bit. .”
This photo was taken on February 27, 2009 using a Canon EOS 40D.

This is a really beautiful image that Tobias has captured here. I love the monochromatic aspect of this image and how the same gray color on the Water Dragon’s scales is mimicked by the background color behind it, without it confusing the eye too much. The composition is also very well framed. Even the lighting is great, with the majority of the light falling on the subject’s face. The only thing that I think could make this a better image could be to have angled the camera above the Water Dragon a little bit more, so it was looking directly at the camera lens [or at least get his eye looking at the lens].

I do find the black border a little distracting though [which I always do]. In my opinion a digital image should never have a border around it, so we can enjoy the image as it is. [For those of you who don't know, this has been adopted from analog photography, where the black border of the negative is often kept showing, to prove that the image wasn't cropped in any way and that the image is pure and was fully and properly composed while shooting. It is sort of a proof that photographer was good enough to not have to rethink an image after it was captured through cropping and other types of manipulation. That being said, it seems a bit odd to have a digital image tied back to analog in this way.]

Other than that, this is a really great shot Tobias! Keep shooting!

-Emma Canfield

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Lost Ladybugs, its shooting time!

Posted on July 27, 2010 by ecanfield

In the Washington Post today there was an article in the kids section discussing the decline in the ladybug population. For the scientists concerned into their disappearance they want photographers to send in pictures of ladybugs so they can find out where these little insects are dissappearing off to.

“There are about 500 species of ladybugs in the United States, but only about 75 of those are what you think of as ladybugs: red bugs with black spots. Losey’s project focuses on three types of ladybugs that are native, meaning they’re from the United States: the nine-spotted, the two-spotted and the transverse ladybug, which has a long stripe instead of a spot on its back….

…His goal this summer is to get 100 photos of ladybugs from every state and Washington, D.C. So far, Maryland has sent 87 images, Virginia, 79, and the District, only 4! Colorado has sent in the most images at 1,517!…

…To find ladybugs, look for them on higher vegetation in a meadow or on a wildflower. Ladybugs also like milkweed plants and roses. A good clue to tracking down a ladybug is a sticky plant. That’s because ladybugs eat aphids, which are insects that secrete a sticky sap onto leaves. But really, Losey says, ladybugs could be anywhere during the summer….”

To see the whole Washington Post article click: HERE

Visit the website and upload images to the Lost Ladybug project: HERE (and make sure to share some of your images on our FlickR site too!)

-Emma Canfield

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