Grey heron

[Jonathan Ashton]

Canon 1DX Canon 500mm f4 & 2x TC 11 ISO 640 1/1600 sec f8
All C&C welcome

[Daniel Cadieux]

I like the walking pose and the habitat. Well exposed, sharp, and well composed. That one grass blade pointing to the bill would likely be eliminated if mine, or at least shortened by half. I would also not sharpen the grasses that are in focus. All else looks super.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Dan why would you not sharpen the grass that is in focus?:w3

Do you think it pulls the eye from the subject?
I deliberately left that bit sharpened to get a response, I suspect there may be mixed views, the reason I left it sharp was simply because it was sharp so we would expect to see it so otherwise the image may not look as natural as might be expected.
The items not in focus I removed sharpening from using a brush so they only have capture sharpening from raw.

[Daniel Cadieux]

With grasses along the plane of focus I often find that they have that "crunchy" over sharpened look when sharpened, and sometimes compete with the subject for "sharp" attention. For that reason, in an image like this one, I only selectively sharpen the subject. The grasses retains the "in focus" look even if you do not sharpen them.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice walking pose with just the right amount of head turn. Nicely done, Jon.

[keith mitchell]

Jonathan interesting reading comments re the sharpening of the grasses, Heron looks good in it's stepping out pose.

Keith.

[Lyle Gruby]

Love the blood on the beak, these birds are true killers. IQ is very nice, I like the habitat except that bush on the right.

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent image in habitat. I like the walking pose, nice colors and details.
Nice discussion too.

Regards,
Satish.