[pmueller]

Just before taking pictures at the Boston harbour I went to the opening of the new museum of modern art (ICA). It was WAY too crowded to get in (very impressive, actually, that so many people would show interest in the opening of a museum dedicated to cotntemorary art!), but the outside was interesting enough. I took a little over 100 pictures, four or five of which are not so bad. This is one of the four:



As always, comments are very welcome.

Peter

[Rob Barron]

It's an interesting shot Peter but I think it desperately needed a wide aperture to defocus the background as it is pretty clear and thus makes it a bit busy. We should be entirely focused on the tacky looking bird phone as the main subject and the rest nicely out of focus. An aperture of f4 would have got it mostly out of focus, f2.8 would have been better and if you own a nifty fifty the f1.8 would work really strongly here. I'd also like you to have taken a step back to get the foot of the stand in as well but of course I have no idea whether that was possible with whatever camera/lens you were using.

Wold love to see some of your pics of Boston harbour, would bring some memories for me of a wonderful trip made to Boston and surrounding area back in 1993.

Cheers,
Rob

[pmueller]

Hi Rob,

I entirely agree with your two points of criticism. Two problems, however, make it difficult to realize: my back was touching the wall of the building (so much for wider angle) and I was at the maximum flash-synchronized shutter speed. It was rather dark around the parrot (under a roof) and very bright in the background (sunny day), therefore I fired the flash (SB-800) at full power. A more powerful flash would have allowed me to open the lens, but, helas, I don't have one.

Until you mentioned it, I did not think the background was all too busy, but now, of course, I see it too. Maybe this is a candidate for some sem-heavy post processing (I am not super experienced with this). I'll play with Photoshop and report back.

Thanks,

Peter