Skypointing Grey Heron

[Iain Barker]

I captured this Gery Heron Skypointing and have been pondering over the composition since.
The crop is from landscape with a little off the top and bottom. I tried tighter crops but quite liked the looser crop here, partly i think as the IQ stays higher. I also tried the bird in the centre and on the left. What do you think of the crop?
Nikon D7000 300mm f4 AF + 1.4x. 1/2000 sec f7.1 iso 800

WB, crop, levels, sharpening in Lighroom and I also found and used the Iris enhance brush wish I hadn't noticed before.

ALL C&C welcome and appreciated.

Iain

[David Kenny]

Very different. I have never seen a pose like this. As far as the crop goes I more then likely would of placed the bird similar to where you did. IMHO This one does not really do it for me. I think it is because the background is very busy and bright and there is not enough separation of the bird from the background. It looks like this shot would of benefitted from more lens reach.

[Diane Miller]

This is an interesting pose. But unfortunately I think the image is suffering from IQ loss due to the amount of crop. But I would take still more off the top, to get rid of the gray stuff up there.

I'm curious about your description of the processing -- sounds like it was all in LR but there is no Levels in LR.

The image seems overexposed -- check the histogram and you'll see it, especially in the red channel. You might think about bringing the exposure down, and maybe holding it back in the FG if it goes too dark. Try tweaking the WB slider along with Exposure and Highlights and see if you can bring the histogram more in range.

Would love to see your next take on this one!

[Randall Farhy]

Hi Iain-neat pose, very unusual-was it hunting insects or was there a large BOP in the area? I know it looks like it should be a vertical, but I'm going to go with landscape if you can position the bird toward the right side of the frame (his twisted posture suggests that for me) and take enough off the top to get rid of or diminish the water as Diane suggests. It looks a little hot but nothing too severe that either red and orange channel adjustments (again as Diane noted) or highlight tweaks wouldn't take care of. It's a keeper-one of those you hang on to because it's so unusual.

[Iain Barker]

David, I agree the background is busy but it a also natural place to find a heron so don't mind it.
Diane, The grey at the top is water. I will look at the exposure again to see if I can make an improvement. When I mentioned levels I was meaning the normal lightroom adjustments such as exposure, highlights, shadows, clarity etc. I never really look at an individual colour channel on the histogram so I will look at that. Is there a way to adjust one channel more that others?
Randall, Not may insects around yet and I didn't see any BOP. Stright after it had done this it started cleaning itself so maybe it was just checking around before letting its guard down. I will look at the crop again including your suggestion of keeping it in landscape.

[Randall Farhy]

Ian-Not sure if LR3 has the H/S/L sliders (Hue/Saturation/Luminance) or not, but that's where I'd go after tweaking the Highlights a little lower. If LR3 doesn't, there's another reason (besides the current ACR converter) to go for the upgrade to LR5. What program are you using to do your layers and clone work? There's probably be a control box under "Image" for that as well.

[Iain Barker]

Thanks Randall Lightroom 3 does have a HSL section so I will have a look.
I need to upgrade my computer to go past Lightroom 3 as I'm still on XP and it is not supported by Lightroom 4 and above. I have Windows 7 but have not had chance to do the upgrade yet. A new version of lightroom will then be high on my shopping list.
I also have Photoshop CS5 so i'm sure the is something in there but prefer to work on the RAW as much as possible.

[Tim Harding]

Awesome pose you caught there. I don't mind the clarity or busy-ness of the bgnd but you could probably do something about the brightness of it.

[Iain Barker]

OK I played around with the tone curve and changed the crop to landscape. I looks quite different to the original post now.
Please let me know what you think.

[Diane Miller]

Much improved! More detail in the bird and emphasis on it!

[Randall Farhy]

I concur, your adjustment and orientation mods have drastically improved this image. I don't know how much of a crop this is but how would you feel about a 4x5 ratio that puts even more emphasis on the subject, or a 5x7?

[Iain Barker]

Thanks Randall,
I think both these crops work and it would depend what I was using the image for if the iq was good enough. For displaying on the web I think they are fine.

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