Critque - September 3rd, 2020 - Barr Lake

Dan and I took another visit to Barr Lake - not nearly as much water as last time! Here are some images from the trip with some critiques. Some of these may eventually make it into the public display areas...The NR performance of the camera continues to impress as many of the images were shot at higher shutter speed and ISO to freeze the motion. All but the meadow shot were preprocessed through DXO PureRaw, which I now like to use on wildlife images.

If you care to comment I'm interested to know what you might like or dislike about any of these.

Grass Stalk 'Macro'
I took 5 or six images of grass stalks, both at a shorter focal length, and then zoomed in like this. I liked these close in shots better, as the others were too busy, with not clear 'subject' and too many stalks 'almost' in focus. This was shot at high ISO and shutter speed to freeze the motion as best I could. I really like the intricate detail in this one. The RF 100-500 is an amazing lens at any focal length, apparently both close-up and far away...
'Unkempt' Meadow
It was amazing how the water had receded at the lake. But the vegetation wasted no time coming in and taking over. This was a shot at the long end of my new RF 14-35. Really liking the color rendition and detail from this lens, as well as the light weight and small size. This is a strong candidate to be posted in the public area. I think I could have perhaps improved the composition had I spent more time on the shot. The tree branches encroaching on the patch of flowers might have been able to be eliminated with a slightly different vantage point., and I think a stronger composition might have included more of the tree on the left, an easy thing to do as I was at 35mm and could have zoomed out. In fact, I thought I had a few other shots of this zoomed out but when I got home I saw that was not the case. I do still like the shot, especially the colors and the detail.
Busy Bumble Bee
Dan noticed a number of bees and butterflies around our feet as we walked through the grasses back to the car. We had a fun time trying to capture some shots with our long lenses. I had a couple bee shots - I think this is my favorite. Not a classic pose, but that is OK (some of those crrep me out anyway :) ). This is a moderate crop. I could post this shot. I like the detail but am unsure about the 'pose' - does it have enough visual interest?
White Butterfly
This is a heavier crop of one of the white butterflies that were in constant motion. It was challenging to get them framed up before they were off to another location. I plan to post this shot in the public area.

Yellow Butterfly
Here is a yellow butterfly - Dan suggested that maybe these are the same species with different coloring? No idea, but seemingly lots of similarities showing up at this scale. This is another heavy crop image to try to get some of the captured detail to show well. I will probably potentially post this shot in the public area.
Blue Heron
WE left Barr Lake (Barr Pond?) and headed back to go to barbour and Swahill Ponds near my house. In typical Lewis fashion, I took us to the wrong turnout, and we had a nice walk along part of Boulder Creek and around the end of the water treatment plant to some small ponds where this guy was located. Unfortunately, this was shot into the sun and there was a real loss of contrast looking that direction.. I am likely not going to post this one. I like the pose but feel like it is compromised by the poor lighting conditions and is another 'not really close enough' heron shot. I have enough of those already.