View Full Version : Piranha...coming at you!
nomaddan
03-15-2005, 3:43 PM
Hello everyone, this is of my largest Piranha, about 5"...all comments/suggestions welcome. Thanks!
elTwitcho
03-15-2005, 6:01 PM
It isn't bad, but there's still a few things that need to be corrected.
First, I think it's always best to stick to 3:2 ratio for cropping. This means one edge is 150% longer than the other edge, basically your standard photo dimensions. Square crops tend to look a bit awkward and get a little screwy when trying to compose everything nicely.
Second, the flash seems a bit harsh and some of the colors (red on the belly especially) came out a bit overblown. It's my experience that it's almost impossible to get a decent shot of a piranha using direct flash, it works on some african cichlids but on piranhas I've found that the coloring just looks very unatural and obviously influenced by the flash.
The crop seems a bit awkward, but that's likely because of the strange dimensions of the shot. If you'd have left the shot somewhat wider it would have been more effective and you could have left some space in front of the fish which is a good way of conveying movement rather than boxing him in within the photograph.
It looks a little noisy as well, what ISO were you using? The timing is quite good, but the things I brought up are going to need to be addressed.
paradise
03-15-2005, 6:38 PM
While I dont think that it's a MUST to use 3:2 crops, it's much easier to visualize things in 3:2 because of our mind trained to see photographs that way. I actually think that with vertically flattened fish like Rhoms, it may work to do a different type of a crop. If anything, I would make sure that there was a bit of space in the direction of the fish'es eye, to show progression. It seems a bit cut off on the right side.
The biggest problem with this shot is that it seems oversaturated. The colors are too deep, almost grotesque. The Red is too bright. I dont know if it's from a flash up close, or from post processing, but it's really bright.
Ohterwise it's a really nice shot. Very expressive pose, too. Very menacing.
Am I the only one that can't see the picture? It shows that there's an attachment, but no picture. Clicking on the picture gives me a message that I'm not authorized to view it...
paradise
03-15-2005, 7:04 PM
how about now? I think that was an error in the "Advice Team" permissions. I just fixed it.
Fixed now. Thanks, Ed.
Beautiful fish. Agree with what Twitcho had to say and also the focus is a tad off.