Gator attack! ( 7 pics beware!)

I havn't posted in a while because I have been on vacation for most of the month of July, and catching up most of this month. I was in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA. the first part of July setting up my camper when my son yells "there's a baby bird in the water with a gator watching it". I think this maybe an interesting shot, so I run inside, grab my camera, and head for the pond.I get there just in time to catch some cool shots of the bird trying to get back to the nest and a gator having lunch! These arn't the best shots due to my still trying to learn, and not being able to change settings before shooting, but I think there cool enogh to post.

The lunch.

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I'm trying to figure out what i'm looking at.

ALLIGATOR, Eating his lunch. The pics look pretty good on my 'puter,is it something I'm doing wrong?

There's nothing wrong with the photos. It's just the subject was far away, and 90% of the gator's body was in the water. So viewers have hard time to see what you saw through the photos.

I was going to crop more, but the picts were so grainy you couldn't tell what was going on. I am trying to learn how to take better photos, but this is harder then rocket surgery! Somebody help!

Can you crop the subject at 800x600 rather than scaling down the full res shots?

I have the RAW files. Like to look at them?

Sure. Got some links?

I like them, hard to take pics of Gators & crocs as they do stay IN the water most of the time. Gee that bird looks like he is s***ing himself in the first pic. LOL. Should see some of the crocs we get over here..... Huuuuuuuge!!!

Looks to far way, could you have zoomed in more?

Coulda, woulda, shoulda...every shot could be perfect if we all had the time to set it up right. You got the camera, you got the shots. Could you have got the gator to stand up and show off his chomping skills? Not likely. Good work in somewhat of a time-constrained situation! And don't beat yourself up over "just" learning. It's what we all do every day!

Wes

Thanks everyone! I feel that someone with more ps knowledge may be able to make these better, but as they say "learning is aquired by doing". Pcasciola, I'll try to get the RAW files on a link or to you this evening when I get home.

I agree. In this situation, it's impossible to set up nicely waiting for the show to begin. But nobody was nitpicking the photos. The OP asked what was wrong with the photos. There's nothing wrong. They just failed to show what the subject title says.

Again, that is true but nobody here said "Why don't you take photos of the gator showing off his chomping skills?". People were just giving feedback to the OP. Had he not put "Gator" in the title, we would not have known it's a gator.

It is a great effort and i'm happy for the OP, had such opportunity to witness something as awesome as this. Our feedback is just to help him learn.

Looks like a little bird or something was lunch! Cropping the photo's so it shows more of the action would be better.