Great Grey Heron

[John Harper]

Hi There

Shot of a Wild Great Grey Heron taken at the Hawk Conservancy as it flew past on its way to a feed. I was trying out my 1DMKIII to see if it focused OK in sunlight, as we haven't had much of that since the New Year.

John

EOS 1D MKIII
EF 500mm F4L
ISO 800
1/4000 @ F4

http://www.portviewfitout.co.uk/grey-heron.jpg

[Arthur Morris]

The focus looks fine to me. Wish that the bird's head were turned a bit more towards you. Love the backlighting on the wing and the bill. If it fits with your personal ethics you might do something like the image below.

later and love, artie

[John Harper]

The focus looks fine to me. Wish that the bird's head were turned a bit more towards you. Love the backlighting on the wing and the bill. If it fits with your personal ethics you might do something like the image below.

later and love, artie

Hi Artie

The re worked image looks great can you please enlighten me as to what you did?

John

[John Cooper]

You have nailed this one John - lovely sharp image with raised wings. I also like the treatment Art has made in the repost, especially the cloning out of the white areas at top of frame - these tended to draw my eye away from the subject.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Artie

The re worked image looks great can you please enlighten me as to what you did?

John

Hi John,

I used the Clone stamp at about 60% opacity on the areas of whitish sky. Then I made a Quick Mask of the upper part of the sky and all the specualar hightlights. I inverted the selection and put it on its own layer. Then I did a Gaussian Blur (about 20 pixels or so) on that layer and voila, mucho improvedo.

The basics of Quick Masking are in the recent update of our Digital Basics flie.

later and love,

artie

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Artie's repost improves this great image a lot. I like the wing position and BG.

[Linda Robbins]

The backlighting works well in this image, and Artie's repost made the background soft and complimentary. Very nice.