Heron

[John Robinson]

Heron turned up in front of my pond hide. Not as nervous as normal.
I liked the water colour more than the bird !!! http://www.naturephotographers.net/imagecritique/smileys/icon_biggrin.gif Difficult exposure too with the bright bird against the back ground.I always have the contrast down one in the camera so that helped .
Reflection too! Yippee!
D200
Sigma 50-500
250th @f8
iso500
80% of full frame.
PP in Paint Shop Pro
Levels/Image guru.
Thanks for Woody comments Appreciated
JohnR

[Karl Egressy]

Nice image. I like the spot light effect on the head, neck and on the water.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Beautiful John - love it. In fact one of your best, it evokes such a natural setting - well done.
I don't fully understand this contrast in camera - is this for jpeg settings - don't you shoot in raw?

[Daniel Cadieux]

I love the water too, and I actually do not mind the head angled away here as it works well with the concentric circles the heron just created. If anything I'd like a tad more room below to give room for the reflection.

[Bill Dix]

Beautiful. Love the golden water and the great light on the bird. Well done, John.

[Tom van den Brandt]

Love the light. Well exposed and nice pose. Very nice John.

Cheers, Tom

[John Robinson]

Thanks people. I must admit I wasn't surevabout this as the hide wason a small island so hence the higher angle but it seems to have worked.
Johnathon- I set the camera contrast settings down or up according to conditions. No I don't shot raw. With my old PC gear I tried it once and spent more time waiting for files to download etc I gave up., and decided to get thimngs as nearas possible right in the first place. You can be surprised at the amountbof stuff you can retieve if need be with other software freebies even on jpegs! Vimas filter studio is a gem and Ialso use Bibble sometimes. And of course you can do a lot in the camera nowadays too Raw files at 24 MPixels is just too much with the amount of stuff I do in a hide session.
Cheers
John

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Very nice heron John!
Love how the light comes in front of the bird. Nice textures on the feathers and pose. I do wish for a lower shooting angle.

[Diane Miller]

Simply gorgeous light on the very sharp bird and a stunning, painterly FG and BG! I love the reflection and wish there was just a little more room at the bottom, but that's a small thing.

Only nit it the bright tan shape near the UL corner.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi John, I like the concentrated pose of the heron, and good feather detail showing on him too. I also like the circular waves below his bill.

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the setting, water colour, ripples and sharpness. I agree with Daniel's comment to add a little below comp wise. Well done John.