I just felt like calling this picture "birds" because thats what it is to me.

What do you think? What would make this a better image? Aside from having a ND grad filter to even out sky and land.

[mike.hiran]

I think a grad filter would definitely help, but I'd probably crop the right side so that only the bridge would show. Problem there would be the pic would be too narrow and I'd want to either crop from the top or bottom, but the blue in the top gives the picture some pop so I wouldn't want to crop there. Cropping from the bottom, though, would make the picture not balanced.... Really, that's a tough shot... probably a longer zoom would help make the birds more more of a focal point of the picture, but then you may have to choose between the river and the sky. Also, the blue in the top is unusually vivid compared to the bottom portion of the picture which is pretty monotone except for the redish/ purplish tint on the very bottom of the picture (I'm geussing this shouldn't be that way, almost looks like saturation was cranked up too high). I do like the idea of the shot but it seems to be difficult for everything to be at the right place at the right time... the right clouds, the birds in the right spot, getting good color in the river from reflections from the sky, etc.

Were you at the waterfront when you took that shot? I love taking pictures down there, though I'm usually on the other side of the river since by the time I'm off work the north side tends to get better light. But I tend to take pictures of static things more...good wildlife shooters are an amazing bunch to me as I think those pictures seem much more difficult to me.