Black Crowned Night Heron

[Ed Kelly]

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8814/17653296012_5baace8ce2_b.jpg

Black-crowned Night Heron with nest building material. Photographed at Port Royal,SC.

D810 & Tamron 150-600mm @600mm

ISO 5000 1/2500 of second f/8

Thanks for looking

Ed

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the eye contact and the nesting material although I wish it had not merged with the far wing, a fully raised or lowered wing position is usually more ideal but this isn't bad either. BG is nice and shows the habitat but the green is a bit too bright and over-saturated and it also shows quite a bit of noise/grain. this can be fixed in post. Exposure is good, the bird itself is also a bit soft and noisy, and it also shows a green color cast. Depending on how sharp the RAW capture was, this image could greatly benefit from improved processing.

TFS

[Ed Kelly]

Arash. Thanks for the input. The 5000 iso did not help matters.

Ed

[Diane Miller]

I think this one is worth some tweaks in a re-do of the raw file. The BG is lovely but somewhat overpowering. A little more shadow recovery and reduction of yellows might subdue it a little, and I'd consider a little off the top and bottom to bring the bird more to the forefront.

[Ed Kelly]

I think this one is worth some tweaks in a re-do of the raw file. The BG is lovely but somewhat overpowering. A little more shadow recovery and reduction of yellows might subdue it a little, and I'd consider a little off the top and bottom to bring the bird more to the forefront.

Thanks Diane. i struggled with the crop. I had it as you have stated,and changed my mind at the last second. I even had the pano loaded on the forum and then pulled it. Here it is with a background saturation reduction,a little blur,and the some yellow pulled out. I also opened the shadows on the heron and added a slight bit of smart sharpening.

https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5330/17699688335_185a06773f_b.jpg

What do you think? Thanks

Ed

[Diane Miller]

I like the crop here. It's gone a little blue -- instead of using color temp / WB to change the yellows (which changes everything else as well), I'd try some Hue-Sat, mostly on yellows but maybe some on greens, too. You can do that in raw, or maybe better in PS if you find you want to mask the changes off the bird, though. Whenever I change sat, I almost always like a slight hue shift as well. Season to taste....

You may need to do the same thing (masking in PS) to lighten the BG, as the bird has lost some contrast here, as well. (Or just darken back the beak and head.)