Many thanks to our judge, Murry Cave.
| TITLE | AUTHOR | JUDGE’S COMMENTS | AWARD |
| A GRADE | |||
| Amanita muscari in woodlands | Eunice Belk | A good image of this Amanita muscaria. Background is a little messy. The fungi bottom left is a bit distracting but probably not able to be removed. It’s a good idea to do a little gardening at least. Sharp and good colour and the depth of focus is enough to show the gill structure. | Accepted |
| Capuchin | Shaun Denholm | Nicely sharp around the eyes and face but sharpness drops off around its ands and ears. Good colour and overall well handled but a bit more depth of focus would be good. | Accepted |
| Caspian Tern | Robyn Young | The Caspain Tern is one of my favourite subjects, largely because they are so flighty that there are hard to get a good nature, Reasonably sharp but a bit over exposed. | Accepted |
| Mating Red Damselflies – Xanthocnemis zealandica | Colleen Linnell | Well seen and a good Bokeh but a little bit too over exposed. A difficult thing to handle as it was obviously a bright day but the best you can do is stop down a tad. | Accepted |
| Amanita muscari | Eunice Belk | Acharacteristic setting for this Amanita mascaria. Good colour and nice and sharp and you’ve got down low so that the gills are visible. That’s at the expense of the out of focus foreground. I like the water droplets on the grass . | Accepted |
| Paper Wasps | Cathy Price | Good colour representation and reasonably sharp but the depth of focus could be better. Some odd mottling on the right edge looks like its due to post processing to obscure the background. Best to leave it as it was, You expect to see these fixed to a wall or whatever & that’s fine by me | Accepted |
| Gypsum desert, White Sands, New Mexico | Pol Syrett | An image with great potential. No doubt you had no choice when you were there but the flat harsh lighting has let you down. Could have had real drama later in the day with some shadows | Accepted |
| Gliophorus | Michael Molloy | A nicely seen Gliophorus sp. and I’m guessing viridian but I’m not surprised that you’ve hesitated to ID the species as the cap shape is reminiscence of G. graminicolor but the luminosity and colour gradation is a good guide. Let down by the very bright stem. | Accepted |
| White Heron | Good action with this White heron but the colour noise is excessive and there’s a loss of detail so not quite to the standard I’d expect in an A grade image. | No award | |
| Kotare | Colleen Linnell | Great image of this Sacred Kingfisher with a crab, Good colour and a nicely muted background. Sharp as. | Honours |
| Bell Frog | Touch and go with this image. I’d have preferred it to be a bit sharper but the colour is good. Nearly was an acceptance but the lack of sharpness won out in the end | No award | |
| White-fronted tern | Rosie Coster | I loved the colour in the wings and the eye is sharp and bright. A difficult subject to get right as the black eye on the black crown means it doesn’t always stand out. Good muted background. | Accepted |
| Mountain goat at 14 000 feet | Pol Syrett | I had a serious debate with myself about this image. Well seen and its well exposed given the harsh lighting. Would have preferred it to be a little less central. | Honours |
| Mycena arcangeliana | Michael Molloy | Nicely seen and photographed. Slightly soft and the cobwebs are a little distracting. The depth of focus needed to be greater. | Accepted |
| White Faced Heron | Marilyn Holgate | Nicely seen and it shows the feeding behaviour of the species well. Well exposed and overall good colour. Not perfect as there is some softness in the chest feathers gut an excellent image otherwise. | Honours |
| Black Billed Gull Preening | Allan McGregor | I was going to just accept this but its sharp and with good colour. Nicely muted background. | Honours |
| Little owl | Ruru nohinohi | David Bayley | A nice shot of the Guru. Good colour and reasonably sharp around the eye but slightly soft overall. | Accepted |
| Tomtit Miromiro | Amy Boyce | Excellent image. I like the pose and the muted background and the colour has been handled well. Slightly over bright on the whites on the ruff. | Honours |
| Broun’s marbled orb-weaver | Sue Titmuss | Iliked this shot but then I have a thing about spiders. Well seen and you’ve got it nice and sharp with good detail. The fly on the left makes the image complete | Honours |
| Tui | Ygot the Tui in full voice but while the colour is good the image is too soft to be acceptable in A grade. | No award | |
| Marble Terrace | Tlots of potential with these sinter terraces but it hasn’t been realised. The point of view seems a little off and the colours quite flat for this subject. Be careful with your names as these are not marble which is metamorphosed limestone. | No award | |
| Gum Emperor Moth (Opodiphera eucalypti) | Na lot of potential with this image but its been let down by being over exposed and a quite soft. As its over exposed there was the opportunity to increase sharpness by stopping down a tad and/or increasing the shutter speed. | No award | |
| Pied Shag | Sarah Perrins | Its always tempting to down play an image just because its a quite common subject but this image of the little shag as a lovely painterly feel to it. Nicely done. | Honours |
| The white-faced heron | David Bayley | A good image of this White Faced Heron. Colour and sharpness is good, very slightly overdone with the whites around the cowl but I would have liked to have seen the subject less confined. | Accepted |
| Honeybee | Sue Titmuss | Great colour and nice and sharp. I’ve seen such images rejected previously because its on an introduced flower. But I don’t care, well framed and nicely captured. | Honours |
| Hypholoma brunneum | Amy Boyce | I like the composition of this H. brunneum and the blurred background is excellent. Colour is a bit off and it’s normally more brown than purple and the gills are a bit soft. | Accepted |
| Port Levy Saddle | I don’t mind the fence or indeed the monochromatic treatment but its been over sharpened as evidenced by the white rims and the natural history subject, the wind sculpted trees haven’t been defined. | No award | |
| Old Men Of The Mist | Again, this is not really a nature image and the title is not one that would be acceptable in a NH subject. Is it morning mist obscuring lowland beech forest or is it podocarp? I don’t know and can’t tell. | No award | |
| Waikuku Kingfisher | Sarah Perrins | Good colour and seems reasonably sharp but with some signs of diffraction. Soooo much potential with the composition but the stem on the right provides too much competition. | Accepted |
| Erinaceus europaeus – Hedgehog | Karina Templeton | The hedgehog is a naturalist species, albeit a pest and so a suitable subject for a NH competition. Quite sharp and good colour but let down by a too narrow depth of focus. | Accepted |
| KÄkÄbeak/ngutu kÄkÄ (Clianthus puniceus) | Cheryl Muirson | Almost gave this an honours as the subject matter and the colour and sharpness in the central flowers is great. Ultimately there’s a bit too much in here and the petals on the right in particular are a bit of a distraction. Could have been cropped in to focus on the central sharp part of the photo. | Accepted |
| Aythya novaeseelandiae (NZ Scaup) | Keith Sycamore | A nice characteristic pose from this Scaup. A hint of over sharpening has snuck in. | Accepted |
| Anthornis melanura – NZ Bellbird – Korimako | Good colour in this bellbird but its just not sharp enough and in this instance the fact that its sitting on a pst is a let down. | No award | |
| Arctocephalus forsteri -NZ Fur Seal | Cheryl Muirson | A good sharp subject in the seal on the right and good colour. Now if you’d just moved your framing a tad to cut out the out of focus seal on the left…. you would have had a better composition. | Accepted |
| Grebe Mother and Chicks | Allan McGregor | Heaps of potential here. Good colour and the adult grebe is nice and sharp and the chick on the left acceptable, but you’ve been let down by the disinterested chick on the right and the one in the rear is out of focus. | Accepted |
| Phalacrocorax varius varius | Keith Sycamore | The pied shag is a great subject as the blue eye and yellow on the cowl adds lots of interest. Its a little bit over exposed and particularly on the breast, otherwise a good image. | Accepted |
| Frog | Shaun Denholm | Teyes of this frog is nice and sharp and there colour is good but it needed a bit more depth of focus and a bit more effort with coming up with a name rather than just “frog”. Cropping at the base would aid composition. | Accepted |
| Australian Magpie with skink | Rosie Coster | Tis an excellent capture. Good feeding action and the colour on the magpie is spot on. Sharp from the beak to the tips of the toes. Great background blur. | Honours |
| B GRADE | |||
| Australasian Crested Grebe, PÅ«teketeke | Anna Heasley | Good action with the Grebe spreading its wings, good colour but a bit soft and the Grebe in the foreground is a bit distracting. | Accepted |
| Haematopus unicolor Variable oystercatcher | The variable oystercatcher is a subject with great potential. You’ve let yourself down as the image is undersized`ed so its hard to assess image quality. Good colour but a bit soft. | No award | |
| Wood Pigeon | I understand that this is a pigeon in a wood but its a Cape Pigeon not a wood pigeon as most people would understand it. Its far too soft unfortunately. | No award | |
| White-fronted tern | There was a lot of potential with this tern with a fish but there is a bit too much softness and it looks like the subject was at a distance and has been cropped in to bring it into frame. The subject is quite burnt out. | No award | |
| fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) | Mike Trushell | Great colour and the front fungi is nice and sharp. It’s quite a busy background that could have been removed which would aid the composition. Some extreme “gardeners” would have removed the background fungi but possibly the impact could have been minimised by changing the viewpoint. | Accepted |
| silver gull (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae) | I’m not quite sure I’ve ever had the red billed gull called a silver gull before but never mind. These make good subjects but this one is just too soft and overblown to accept. | No award | |
| Pied Shag | Brian Edmunds | Slightly over exposed but good colour. The composition has let you down bit though. The shag in the front is partially obscuring the perch for the one in the background but you can still see its feet poking out. A “jump to the left” would have helped. | Accepted |
| Juvenile Pied Shag | Brian Edmunds | Excellent image. Sharp and a good composition. Slightly burnt out on the breast but the overall image is great. | Honours |
| Clay Cliffs – Near Omarama | Cliff Boddy | A nice composition and the colour is good. Some loss of detail but its a good geology NH image which you don’t see that often. | Accepted |
| N.Z.kea | Arthur Linnell | Good colour and reasonably sharp view of this kea. Its obviously on pavement and a more natural view of this mountain parrot would be preferred. Otherwise handled well. | Accepted |
| Kotuku, White Heron | Lyonne Van Robinson | Nice image of this White heron taking off, I’m guessing at Waitangi Roto. I don’t mind the mono treatment and I suspect it was to cope with the colour noise. But its a good composition so I don’t object . | Accepted |
| N.Z. native hibiscus richardsonii | This is not a native but is now naturalised. This looks a bit more like H. tridactylites than richardsonii which doesn’t have the black or purple centre. Could be a hybridised variety. | No award | |
| NZ Scaup | Cliff Boddy | A was a bit ambivalent about this one as the blue colour is unnatural but its just sharp enough to let it sneak in. | Accepted |
| Kotuku,White Heron | Lyonne Van Robinson | Lovely image of these two White herons in breeding plumage creating each other at Waitangi Roto. The whites have been handled well and the composition is excellent. | Honours |
| California Quail, Tikaokao | There was a good opportunity with this Californian Quail as the colour is spot on but its a little soft and the foreground grasses are somewhat distracting. Slightly over exposed whioch means that either stopping down a tad or an increased shutter speed might have aided sharpness. | No award | |
| C GRADE | |||
| Dahlia Pinnata | Coralee Scott | Technically a Dahlia is not a NH subject and remember with while the Genus name is capitalised the species name is always lower case. The real NH subject here is the honey be Apis apis and that’s well exposed and with good colour. | Accepted |
| Sea lines | Linda Watson | I’m a little ambivalent about this one. I understand that you’re attracted to the rills in the sand almost looking like river channels, The highlights are quite harsh however and that has let you down. Its always good to try this on an overcast day when the sun doesn’t get in the way | Accepted |
| Karoro / Great Black- backed gull | Pat Roberts | A lot of potential and gulls can be one of my favourite subjects. Be careful with harsh sunlit as its never your friend. Control of your shutter speed and aperture is critical to manage such lighting conditions. | Accepted |
| Kuihi – Greylag Geese | Danielle Armstrong | A good action shot and the sun has been well handled. Could be a little sharper. | Accepted |
| Sheep Dreams | While this is a nice shot of this sheep it doesn’t fit the criteria of natural history. Try entering in an open competition. | No award | |
| Sea coming in | Linda Watson | The action of waves is an acceptable natural history subject but take care to see and tell a story with your image. Think about what would inspire others when the see the subject. Technically the handling is good. | Accepted |
| Kotuku / White Heron | Pat Roberts | Nicely framed shot of this White heron in flight. Its a bit under exposed and a bit soft but great composition. | Accepted |
| KakÄ«Änau – Black Swan | Danielle Armstrong | Nice and sharp image of this Black Swan and the hard lighting conditions have been handled well. You will often have plenty of time with swans so take your time to get that perfect composition. | Accepted |
| Waipunga Falls | Alison Scott | This is a nicely framed well exposed view of this waterfall. I definietely want to go there and have a go myself and that’s a sign of success. Next time you’re there or at another waterfall try spotting down heaps with a slow shutter speed. Tripod essential. | Accepted |
| Rhipidura Albiscapa | Linda Ritchie | There was a lot of potential in this image but there’s quite a lot of detail lost and it looks unnatural around the eye. Was it some distance away and you’ve cropped in? It looks like the image suffers from diffraction which happens when you do that. | Accepted |
| Rosa Hybrida | This is a nice shot and would suit a open subject competition well but as a cultivated flower it doesn’t meet the NH competition criteria. | No award | |
| Suillus luteus | Wendy Pope | This is a very well handled shot of this fungi. the colour is great and its sharp. Nice muted background. Well done. | Honours |
| Suillus luteus | Wendy Pope | Best C Grade | |
| Juvenile Pied Shag | Brian Edmunds | Best B Grade | |
| Tomtit Miromiro | Amy Boyce | Best A Grade & Champion |