Dont take anything I say too seriously Belinda, Even I cant get a decent Egret shot, this is the best I've ever managed and its still burned out on its back, and YES it is manipulated to try and hide some of the burning out


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Go on, admit it, you did it yourself after too much Sangria

.....Hope its ok though

Well pointed out George, I should have spotted that myself.

It seems Martin and myself are at least on the same wavelength, as for other opinions I too have no problem with manipulation if its done well and produces a good image, and as said this was even possible in the darkroom, unfortunately digital has made manipulating images a lot easier for the masses and I feel this is where the problem (if it is one) arises, in other words are newer photographers relying too much on photoshop as an image rescue tool when they should be addressing the problem in camera?

Having just left some rather negative comments on the photos forum I ask the question "where is photography going"

Is it just me or is the world going manipulation crazy? As an older generation snapper I was taught to get it right in camera, unfortunately the current trend seems to be snap away and sort it out later, even digital photo mags seems to be overdone with articles for cooking images later. My camera clubs competitions are full of images that are obviously manipulated (yes even more than could be done in a traditional darkroom) and I often wonder "is it digital art or is it photography"?

Sadly my negative comments were for an image that was heavilly manipulated, I suspect because the original wasn't up to scratch, the photographer probably blinded by manipulation techniques from some digital mag or other, are WE the older photographers failing in our duty to educate newer people to the hobby or are we just a bunch of old stick in the muds who cant see further than FP4 or Kodachrome 64.

Much much better without the manipulation

I guessed you'd have blown highlights on this, but TBH its not all that bad for someone with little experience of shooting white birds, even experts will find exposing for this type of shot a bit tricky.

Oh Dear!

Sorry Belinda but I have to agree with Malo, and to be really blunt I think this image is terrible. I tend to believe in the saying "you cant make a silk purse out of a sows ear" or to bring it up to date digitally "GIGO" Garbage In Garbage Out.
I admit I am not the worlds best photographer (by a long shot) but I firmly believe that we should all endeavour to capture the image in camera. sadly, digital makes us think we can "sort it out later" and I think this is what you have tried to do here, youv'e tried to manipulate an image because it perhaps wasn't up to scratch in the first place and as John has said, over-manipulation usually produces far inferior images than the originals even more so if the original was dodgy to start with.
Of course I could be talking out of my whatsits and you have a superb original image that you've just messed up

I'm with Malo, show us the original pic, but I suspect its badly burned out because of the white plumage. I also i suspect you were really annoyed with yourself because it seemed a very good capture at the time.

PS: please dont take these comment to heart, I think some of your previous shots have been wothy. its just that the Egret is a majestic creature and with this shot you may as well have taken a gun to shoot it.....you killed to poor little bugger

Just look upon it as "record" photography.

And to expand on Johns opinion there are many things that can be considered "someone else's art/work" stained glass windows, floral displays, well dressing, jewelry, even architechture, the list is endless.

1 & 2 Are superb, but methinks number 3 is a bit of digital trickery combining the others.

Am I right?

Photoshop 7
But Pentax Photo Browser which should have been bundled with your camera automatically displays the EXIF info at the botom of the screen when you click on a thumbnail in the browser.

Me again

Just had a quick look at the EXIF on this image, it was shot at f5.6 at 300mm, which would suggest it was already at maximum aperture, unless of course Sledge has a very expensive bit of glass he would have been hard pressed to get the background further out of focus.