Alan WF

The photograph of the black bird is very striking indeed! The pale green and brown of the background work so well this the subject. The brown bird is very nice, but suffers in comparison to the ...

Lovely. You might want to consider a different crop, to eliminate the horizontal lines in the out-of-focus region at that top. Regards, Alan

Interesting. I’m not sure if its the dark tones, of the subject, or the sky, or everything, but these seem very hash and foreboding to me. Regards, Alan

One recent example from my own photography is understanding the interaction of aperture, ISO, and a 1.4× teleconverter. It helped me understand that the noise in a 1.4× crop without the ...

Please find where I said it would not. I’ll wait. You’re back? I presume you instead found the two places, here and here , where I explicitly said that a crop from a sufficiently good 200 mm f/4 wi ...

Using the 200 mm f/4 at 1/1600 and ISO 100, and then cropping to 300 mm, would give you an equivalent image to using the 300 mm f/5.6 at 1/1600 and ISO 200. It would have the same photon noise, ...

Perhaps. I’m replying on the basis of my understanding of what you wrote, which may or may correspond to your meaning. The issue here is not whether a good 200 mm cropped to 300 mm can be better ...

I mean that two images of the same subject, taken from the same distance and with the same shutter speed, one with a 200 mm f/4 wide open and then cropped to the field of a 280 mm and a second ...

Yes, indeed. ... which you of course immediately lose by cropping. Regards, Alan

Astonishingly beautiful. I do like how your choice of background shapes and colors complements your subjects, especially in the second, third, and last photographs. Regards, Alan

I think these are beautiful. To my eye, the structure in the bokeh gives a feeling of movement, which sets up an interesting tension with the main subject. Fascinating. Regards, Alan

Thanks for those insightful comments! Good suggestion. After dodging, burning, shifting of the color of shadows, we have this version. I tried moving the greens slightly to yellow, and I don’t ...

Thank you, Travis. Yes, on this we agree. Yes, but the light is blah. Yes, but again the light is blah. After the closest photograph, my favorites are this one: I like the framing here, with the ...

Thanks. Many of the larger birds in Xochimilco are not too bothered by humans. It helps that the boats (called trajineras) are punted or propelled by a barge pole rather than a noisy motor. I was ...

Last week we took a trip on the canals of Xochimilco, which was a great opportunity for photographing aquatic birds. Here is a selection of images of black-crowned night herons; I am drawn to the ...

It’s the hot season, so we’re spending the week in a house with a pool a couple of hours south of Mexico City. The extender was not really necessary for this photograph, but I was up on the roof ...

It’s the hot season, so we’re spending the week in a house with a pool a couple of hours south of Mexico City. The extender was not really necessary for this photograph, but I didn’t have lens and ...

This is the stand-out photo to eye[*]. I love the lines, I love that one has to work a little to understand the scene, as that draws one in, I love the triangle of blue sky giving context and ...

I like the framing and the tones here. I’m not sure the characterizing swirl works with this scene; it sends my eye looking for an absent central subject. Regards, Alan

This is lovely. I especially like the contrast of the blue above with the rich oranges; so often  a sunset has just oranges. Regards, Alan