Yesterday I went for a walk to feed the ducks

[arith]

Burton on Trent panorama's unfortunately a bit on the small side and carefully avoiding giant electric pylons, factories and most cars.

Any advice on cropping appreciated; these are only cropped a tiny bit.

[rick55]

A very nice series. I like #3 particularly, the tower in the background gives it a very nice feel.

If I were cropping, I might take out some or all of the slope on the left of #1: the slope doesn't seem essential to the rest of the shot, and it leaves me wanting more to the left. For #4, if you have enough room on the left to move the subjects to the right, so they're entering the frame, rather than leaving it, you might try that, see how you like it.

Cheers,
Rick

[arith]

Cheers; I thought that but I'm fixated by the mystery of forked junctions. It is a lot easier to get to a reasonable size that way, and the swans well it was the first time using any auto mode and my camera stopped working after a burst of 9 shots. Also Tv mode doesn't guarantee a fixed speed but I've found out why and also how to dial in exposure compensation since then and I would definitely have had -1 ec giving a much faster speed and I would have got this better.

[Terry Tedor]

I'm with Ric, I like 3 the best, but the light is a little hard. 2 is good too, with the sweeping diagonals of the willow branches and the person on the path adds a bit of human interest.

In your second post, I see what you mean about the shutter speed.

Also Tv mode doesn't guarantee a fixed speed but I've found out why and also how to dial in exposure compensation since then and I would definitely have had -1 ec giving a much faster speed and I would have got this better.

Your comment's got me a bit confused. On my 50D, in Tv mode, you set the shutter speed, which would then remain constant until you change it aqain, and the camera varies the aperture. I was under the impression that Tv mode worked the same way throughout the Canon line, and from what I've seen, is pretty much standard throughout the industry.

Am I missing something, or did you mean to say Av, which would match your comment regarding the changing shutter speed?

[arith]

I'm with Ric, I like 3 the best, but the light is a little hard. 2 is good too, with the sweeping diagonals of the willow branches and the person on the path adds a bit of human interest.

In your second post, I see what you mean about the shutter speed.

No it is Tv and there is a function to set to ensure it doesn't get over ridden. I don't know why it can't up the iso instead but on the day despite a blue sky I got a wide range of speeds. It was set at 1/1600 and only the top swan came out at that speed.