An old friend

[Grace Scalzo]

This bird returns every fall and spends the winter at one of our local ponds. He is extremely tame and tolerates people and dogs to a large extent. I cleaned up some fuzz from the end of his bill, fixed an errant blade of grass and cleaned up a dark corner. Cropped for comp, levels, and a bit of smoothing of the background with Nik.

Thanks for looking....great to be posting and looking at your inspiriting images after a couple weeks away thanks to Sandy.

1/5000, f 5.6, ISO800
Canon 1Dmk4, 500 f4 + 1.4tc+ tripod


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[John Cooper]

Hi Grace, that's a nice portrait of this heron showing excellent feather detail and lighting. The warm BG tones makes a pleasent back-drop to the grey colouration of the bird.

[dankearl]

Very nice portrait and details, especially that great Eye!
They always look nice when they get in that hunkered down pose.

[arash_hazeghi]

nice portrait of a classic subject

[Jamie Douglas]

I like the light on the eye but can't help some of the finer details are lost in the feathers with the shallow DOF.

Jamie

[David Salem]

Nice portrait of a GBH . Exposed well and nice color and detail. Like the BG and your comp choice. Great work...

[christopher galeski]

nice portrait,sharp were it needs to be,like the BG,well done.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice portrait, grace. It is sharp and has lot of details.

[Melissa Groo]

Lovely portrait of this heron, Grace. Really like the classic hunkered down pose and those background colors. Great to see you posting here again, and to know you are doing ok. You've been sorely missed.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Absolutely super great exposure and focus.

[Lorant Voros]

Very nice and full of details; love the composition here. I'd increase the mid tones a little bit. Any reason for the ISO800 and the 1/5000?

[Grace Scalzo]

Lorant, thanks for the suggestion. Reason for settings was that I was working on a flight shot of a different bird, wanted to be ready.

[Shawn Zierman]

Very nice portrait. Good light quality. Nice mottled background.

[Maya Raut]

Nice portrait Grace...Hope things are getting better in LI.