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The fish pics are very good, not a lot to improve upon, cos the lighting is always tricky and in public aquaria the glass inevitably is covered in foul secretions from small childrens manky hands ( I have been known to take KFC wipes with me and give the glass a quick wipe when nobodys looking ) The only thing to practice maybe is using the camera with extreme steadiness on a low iso, maybe 100 -50 to reduce the grain. If the fish moves you just have to suck it up, and shoot again, trouble with fish photography is if you shoot things on too high a speed you lose the detail you were trying to capture in the first place, and just end up with a load of grainy photos you end up dumping. If you have photoshop, take the pictures dark with less grain, and then adjust the lighting/contrast when you get em on the pc.

If you can make sure the focus is always on the eye of whatever youre shooting, especially if its a facial portrait of a fish or a bird, cos digitals often have problems percieving feathers and fur, so the way to get away with the shot is to get the eye in focus, its just the way the eye in the human viewer works. Theyll forgive almost anything as long as the eye is in focus. The cacti shot is pretty good, but compositionally I might have gone for an equally narrow field of view but tried to get the focus either to the middle of the picture, or dropping in closer to the plant and looking down its length to give a sense of extreme perspective, perhaps making the spines a little more significant and looking through them across the cactis flesh.Thats more of a personal taste thing though.

The lil foxy composition is lovely, but theres a limited and subtle colour palette there, and a risk of overexposure where the sunlight hits. In those circumstances its actually good to think what youd like to see in the finished picture as you take it, and while this is a matter of personal taste I might have been tempted to go for a slower speed, maybe a black and white, or a sepia shot to really bring out the tonal qualities. It will also reduce a digital cameras tendancy to view fur as a haze from a distance. If you wanted to stay in full colour , subtle use of the flash would have closened the tonal range , therefore making overexposure less likely.

Cant see you improving the shot of the snake without a tripod or a better quality lens, and a slow exposure.

The Klipspringer shot is gorgeous though, nothing to be improved upon there, the off centre composition whilst retaining focus on the subject was excellent.

On the lionfish shot, the background is irrelevant except for its colour, so trace round the fish as accurately as you can and with the selection tool and use the smart blur set on high quality in photoshop or similar to take it right back, this will make the bubbles less distinct and then use the sampler tool and a few 12-15 % strength airbrush tool strokes over the line of the bubbles to break them up a bit. Do it well, no-one will ever know, and the clarity of the lionfish will really stand out.

To be honest you dont really need a critique and you already show talent as a photographer, and you show ability to make the best of circumstances at what can be tricky shooting moments, but you asked for it, so you got it .lol

Good stuff

That's exactly the kind of critique I was looking for, git, thanks

The hand wipes are a good idea, I never thought of that... I'll definately use some of them next time I go on a fishy photoshoot

The only ISO settings my camera has are 100, 200, and 400, so I'm rather limited on what I can do. And as near as I can tell, most of the grain comes from it being a glorified old 4.1MP compact snapshot type camera (Sony Cybershot S85). ALL of my shots are grainy, no matter what ISO and shutter speed, and aperture they're at!

The funny thing is that a lot of these shots were snapshots that I took while I was on the run, and rather quickly composed them and ran and didn't even look at them after I took them. The only shots I really tried on were the snake, kestrel, and klipspringer shots... ALL of the other shots I posted were quick snapshots.

I took several of the cactus, but again, they were snapshots and I was in a hurry... and it was prickly and rather hard to get the camera on it and get up that close without getting hurt or falling on the cactus That was the best of the ones I took of the cactus... some of the others had different focal points (the deep ridges, etc), and I liked this one as the best of the bunch by a long shot, although I would prefer that it be running in the other direction, like a mirror image of it (which I suppose I could do in photoshop).

The fox shot was a quick snapshot I just took without doing much composing... I just saw the wood and the fox and everything, pointed the camera, arranged it decently, and shot it. I don't really like how it looks (asthetically, at least) with the shadow on his head, but it does add some artistic value to the photo, I suppose?

I took several of the snake at varying exposures (from 1/4 sec, to 1.6 seconds), and I liked this one the best of them all. I had to press the camera's lens up against the glass of the cage to steady the camera so it wouldn't move, but it still did slightly on that picture (look closely, you can tell by looking at the snake's head).

I love the klipspringer shot too, but I wanted him farther off to the right, and open space (his home/'natural' environment) on the left, but couldn't because there was a bunch of meerkats over there that would throw off the balance of the picture, and I couldn't zoom in any farther because my zoom sucks

I'll give that a try with the lionfish shot, but I SUCK in photoshop, so I dunno how it'll turn out... we'll see tho...

Thanks

BTW, any other compliments/critique/suggestions/criticism is still welcome/would be appreciated

If you fancy a look, heres a few of photos ive done with a subject other than fish...

All taken with the Canon S2 IS

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a245/longhairedgit/IMG_5889.jpg

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a245/longhairedgit/IMG_5690.jpg

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a245/longhairedgit/IMG_5660.jpg

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a245/longhairedgit/IMG_1327.jpg

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a245/longhairedgit/IMG_1301.jpg

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a245/longhairedgit/IMG_0986.jpg

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a245/longhairedgit/IMG_0591.jpg

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a245/longhairedgit/IMG_1193.jpg

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a245/longhairedgit/IMG_0523.jpg

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a245/longhairedgit/IMG_0480.jpg

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a245/longhairedgit/IMG_2140.jpg

Enjoy

Thanks for the pictures. I can remember when the Henry Dorley Zoo had their animals in cages. It is lovely now, and I miss not being able to go there.

Snot too shabby, git

I'm glad you enjoyed them, pug

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a245/longhairedgit/IMG_2140.jpg

"And if your head explodes with dark forbodings too I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon."

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

Some sort of lizard (forgot the name)

Looks like a Bearded Dragon. I used to have one, that's the only reason I know...


Nice pics there waffle...but I agree...resize them cause they are quite big

Hey waffle if you want that lionfish photoshopped, send it over to me and ill do it for ya.

( and that lizard is definately an australian water dragon, none of the genus pogona (bearded dragons) have that brown stripe quite so vivid in that position.Ive kept barbatas, vitticeps and henrylawsonii, and indonesian /australian water dragons.) They are all agamids and the colour of the scales is similar, but the patternation , head structure, and scalation is unmistakeable. On a lizard that size the identifying characteristics of a male or female bearded dragon are so distinctive they would not be easily mistaken, thats a physignathus leseuri , with all the physical attributes youd associate with the species and a specimen of its age.

Theres some nice picture comparatives on this site if you wanted to confirm it for yourself.

http://www.vandivers.com/

Thanks, patty, but it's definately an aus water dragon (I remember the big sign next to his cage now )

Thanks, git, I'll send you the full sized file next time I see ya on msn

Oh. Well it looks almost the same as a Bearded Dragon so it's easy to confuse them.


Merph!

Just thought you guys might like to see that lionfish touched up.

Attached Image:

Thanks again for that, git