Dabbling with wildlife... C&C welcome

[Magog]

Wildlife photography isn't usually my scene, man (as we used to say in the seventies ). However the attached shots were taken on a visit to the Bandia wildlife park in Senegal a couple of weeks ago. All were taken on my EOS 60D, with an 70-200mm f4 L and 1.4x converter, whilst being bounced around in the back of a Hilux truck.

Whilst my idea of catching the giraffe feeding was OK, I think the branches maybe clutter the image a bit.


I was somewhat under-lensed for this shot of an Abyssinian Roller, but a crop has produced an OK image (I think).


Another Roller presented itself a bit closer to the truck, so not much cropping was needed:


All in all, I take my hat off to the folks who capture the beautiful images that appear elsewhere on these threads; wildlife photography needs a lot more time, patience and knowledge than I have at present!

[AB26]

Hi John,
Beautiful shots. No 2 is my favorite. You might consider a little different crop allowing a little more space to its front.

[deetheturk]

Nice images John,i'm with Andre,#2 for me as well!

[Magog]

Andre and David, thank you for the comments. I think you're right - the bird needs space to look into, I guess, just as with moving subjects you should leave some space in the frame for subject to "move" into. I was trying to avoid having the head and eye too central,
I'll try a different crop.

[ChrisH]

Greta images - I particularly like the two birds where you have captured their brilliant colours. A fine set of mages.

[Shadowman]

Nice captures.

[bnnrcn]

Very nice images

[IzzieK]

I like all three -- need work on #2 space-to-look and #3 needs eye brightening to make it look more sexier. I love the giraffe close up as well.

[Geoff F]

Looking good to me. And when viewed at full screen size those branches behind the giraffe appear to be more distant and less of a problem.

[Magog]

Thanks very much for the input folks; I'll have a dabble with the images tonight.

[John 2]

A nice set of images. Dabble away and show us some more John.

[Wavelength]

excellent images.... Liked them all

[Magog]

Thanks again for the supportive comments.

As per Andre and David's comments, I've tried a slightly different crop on the first bird shot:



And as per Izzie's suggestion, a little lightening of the eye in the second shot:



A better result, I think.

[deetheturk]

Much better John,well done!

David

[NorthernFocus]

Nice job of dabbling. The giraffe is awesome. If anything the branches add to the photo. The recrop of the first bird is an improvement. The second bird was a challenging shot due to lighting, the long tail complicating framing, ant the branch in BG behind the bird's head. It would also have helped if the little bugger would have turned towards the camera just a tad. Overall a nice set of images.

[AB26]

Thanks again for the supportive comments.

As per Andre and David's comments, I've tried a slightly different crop on the first bird shot:

John,

Does it look better to you? Are you happy with the image?

[Bobobird]

All good now and all are superb images. Good job on something that you do not do.

[Magog]

John,

Does it look better to you? Are you happy with the image?

Yes Andre - definitely.

Thank you!