Another Greenbacked Heron

[Anita Rakestraw]

Not as good as Dave's, but I think it's slightly better than my previous post....? Again I wasn't sure what the best crop would be.
MarkIII, handheld, 1-400mm w/1.4 extender, focal length 520
2-26-08, 4:15 pm
ISO 400, EV 0, f/8, 1/1000

I did clone out a branch in front of its tail. Otherwise, just standard optimizing and a crop. I've noticed lately that I'm sometimes getting some haloing around my birds even before sharpening, and with in-camera sharpening at 0. Any thoughts about that?

(Whoops, I thought I was uploading to "Eager to Learn...." You can switch it if you want to.)

[Daniel Cadieux]

There you go Anita, I've moved it for ya. Nice pose on the heron. A crop from the top would be good. A bit more sharpening (while avoiding halos) would also be good. Just for the record, "Green-backed Heron" was it's former name...now only known as "Green Heron". :D

[Arthur Morris]

I am fine with the crop. As suggested above, some sharpening of the face and the feathers of the sides of the breast and the folded wings would help. The eye could use some work as well.

[Alfred Forns]

Here it is !!!


Hi Anita I like the clean bg and good pose !!! Would try not using the converter on that zoom It is usable but the quality will suffer. Best think you can do is place the lens on a tripod and photograph a target. Could use a newspaper taped to a wall. See what the results are with and without the converter. Could try wide open and then closing one ..... results might surprise you.

Image wise I think you could have dialed a little plus comp for this image. While pointing up you will find it to be the case most often. +2/3 might have done it. Check the original histogram and see if you had to add light in the conversion/processing

Halo wise not sure what is going on. If the image is well exposed and all it needed were slight changes not sure there should be one. If you used Noise Ninja check that sharpening is not set. That will give all sorts of trouble. For completing and sharpening do select the bg and inverse (feather also) Best insurance to avoid the halo.

[Anita Rakestraw]

Thanks to each of you for the comments and suggestions. I agree with all that's been said. And I know I shouldn't use that converter, but darn it, it's sure difficult to get very close to birds around here - this heron's about the most cooperative bird I've found in a while. I need a bigger lens! (-: Oh, and Daniel, thanks for moving this; and I didn't know about the heron's updated name....guess I need to update my l988 Audubon Handbook!

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Anita, very nice pose and excellent background. A beautiful shot indeed.
Congrats,

[Anita Rakestraw]

Thank you, Oscar, I appreciate your stopping to look and comment!

[Dave Phillips]

a very nice pose Anita.....did you run noise reduction on this?
Agree with Alfred about the TC......a crop may be sharper

[Anita Rakestraw]

Thanks, Dave; I did run a little noise reduction on it, wasn't sure if the noise was enough to show or not....sometimes my eyes trick me!

[Dave Phillips]

Anita, the noise is only showing in the shadow area.
I asked because some of the bird appears to have had too much NR, but it may be the amount of cropping.

too much NR will give a plastic/smooth look as appears on head and legs