[EnglishBob]

Stilt, shot last weekend at a local Nature Reserve.

7DII, 1/800s, F/9, ISO400, 500mm

[EdMak]

Nice one Bob, consider remove the "weeds" around the beak, and back, a difference, to me. Ed.

[EnglishBob]

I never remove things in nature images just so I don't forget I did, and use it in a competition. The PSA doesn't allow cloning, retouching etc in the nature division.

[EdMak]

Understandable, thanks. Ed.

[EnglishBob]

And now you mentioned it, the out of focus grass in front of it's beak is annoying me LOL.

It's funny how a critique can change your opinion of an image. My wife takes pictures when she's out with me, just a small compact with a long lens but she takes a few and then waits for me. She's entered the Camera Club competitions twice in 10 years, and both times the judges comments have stuck with her and ruined her images in her eyes. She no longer enters LOL.

My skins a little thicker and I always remember one of my mentor's comment he always said before judging a club meeting "My opinion is worth exactly what you paid for it". This from a guy in his late 80's who started photography in his teens, earned his living from it his entire life, still had clients in his 80's and had shot with Ansell Adams on more than one occasion.