Steve, I think you have done well for a hand held shot, and I don't find the OOF parts of the snail that distracting.
Your situation is pretty much like one I had with a shot of a swallowtail butterfly from Shenandoah. I ended up cropping. Have you considered that for the snail shot? I'll see if I can put up the butterfly later tonight. Jostein ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Desjardins" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, June 25, 2004 7:36 PM Subject: PAW - Snail's pace > I was walking in the evening a few days ago and it started raining. I > noticed a number snails moving out of the grass onto the wet road. > Taking my *ist D out of the plastic shopping bag (yes I was prepared) > and getting down on the road I took this with an A50 1.7. > > http://home.wlu.edu/~desjardi/ > > I'm not completely happy with this. I got most of the snail in focus, > but the center of the shell is a bit off, as is the end of one "stalk" > In addition, there are some blown highlights on the shell. The big > problem though is that I find the out of focus gravel to be > distracting. Any ideas? I tried selecting the blurred positions and > doing a Gaussian blur to soften them a bit, but the contrast with the > sharp gravel "path" was too much. Any suggestions? > > I am planning a series of B&W's of snails playing saxophones for money > in Lexington, but they're not ready yet . . . ;-) >
