Green Heron

[Bob Harrington]

I went looking for tadpoles with my wife and my son at a place in Wilton, New York. A green heron decided to fly into the open and go fishing.
Canon 100-400mm IS L lens (handheld at 400mm) with the EOS-20D. ISO 800. Pattern metering. 1/400 sec. at f/5.6. No flash. Adjustments done in Lightroom.
Picture is NOT cropped. :D

[Arthur Morris]

The bird is sharp and the head angle is lovely. Did you intentionally create the very light area in the llc or was there something o-o-f between you and the bird? The white areas above and behind the bird's head are (also) distracting. Lastly, your name is too, too large...

[Steve Maxson]

Welcome, Bob. A nice sharp image. I think Artie pretty well covered things above. Removing the 2 white blobs in the background would improve the image. Also, you might consider cropping from the left to the point where the curly plant stem is no longer in the frame (or maybe a little beyond that point) to give you a head and shoulders portrait. Keep them coming.

[Bob Harrington]

The bird is sharp and the head angle is lovely. Did you intentionally create the very light area in the llc or was there something o-o-f between you and the bird? The white areas above and behind the bird's head are (also) distracting. Lastly, your name is too, too large...
The light area on the lower left was not intentional. I would have preferred the shot without it. Unfortunately, there was only a small stump on the ground between me and the bird, and when the bird got closer, it went behind it. As for the other items, I planned on fixing those. Thanks for the input. :) I wanted to show off the picture before I touched it up.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Bob,
It will be interesting to see the FG spot fix. Will check back!

[Leroy Laverman]

Getting that FG spot would be a real challenge for me. Since this is FF I think I'd try to crop it out and go for a tighter portrait,especially with the nice details you've captured. Can't wait to see how it turns out. Hopefully you'll share how you get that spot out.

[Bob Harrington]

Here is a cropped version of the picture. Feedback appreciated.

[Leroy Laverman]

I like the crop better. Maybe add back some more space on the right and top. It could also use another round of sharpening at this size and perhaps a little boost in color. Something like the following maybe?