Little Blue Heron, immature

[Bill Dix]

D90; 80-400 VR @ 400mm. ISO 1600, f/5.6 @ 1/250s. Matrix metering @ -1.3 EV. HH.

Taken in the rain at Ding Darling the day before Thanksgiving. I know I pushed the limits on the ISO, and the SS vs. Focal Length ratio. But I wanted one of these guys in immature plumage to accompany my shots of the mature ones, so there you have it. Couldn't get lower without hiding his legs behind the grass. Don't know if it's worth trying to do something about the rain drops. C&C appreciated.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Bill I like the ISO setting, you gave yourself a chance and came up with a sharp image, noise can be dealt with but not blur !!

Lots of raindrops so it would be difficult dealing with them, I think you made the best possible image from your position. Curious about the color under the body, normally they start turning a gray color !!!

[Lance Peters]

Hi Bill - Rains doesn't bother me -feels a little tight on the bottom - some more room for the virtual feet??? (Probably is enough there already, grass just seems to give it that feeling maybe)
Whites look good, Good HA and nice work with the high ISO.
Good show:)

[Bill Dix]

Hi Bill I like the ISO setting, you gave yourself a chance and came up with a sharp image, noise can be dealt with but not blur !!

Lots of raindrops so it would be difficult dealing with them, I think you made the best possible image from your position. Curious about the color under the body, normally they start turning a gray color !!!

Alfred, thanks for commenting. I'm not sure either about the blush under the body; but I do have some images of an immature LBH from last year, which show the mottled bluish gray on the wings and back, and seem to have a bit of warm blush underneath although that might be a reflection of the habitat. Sibley doesn't show it. Maybe it's a coincidence.

[Bill Dix]

Hi Bill - Rains doesn't bother me -feels a little tight on the bottom - some more room for the virtual feet??? (Probably is enough there already, grass just seems to give it that feeling maybe)
Whites look good, Good HA and nice work with the high ISO.
Good show:)

Thank you Lance. I was trying to minimize the OOF grass in the foreground, but I probably should have included just a bit more.

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Bill,
I like the composition, image and the capture...I don't know if it was possible for a lower capture angle, but sometimes its just not possible...I too would have liked to have seen a tad more on the bottom...sweet image...keep them coming...:cool:

[Christopher Miller]

Hi Bill, Looks like you made the best image you could under the circumstances. Nice pose and HA. I would try cloning out the raindrops, and I might also crop tighter especially on the top.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Bill How big was the bird? The bill looks like a reddish egret white morph !!

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Nice composition and subject. The magenta cast on the bottom of the bird is worrisome, I'd be inclined take a saturation brush to it with a fairly low opacity, assuming you are using PS. Although a - EV is useful with white birds under high contrast situations (direct sunlight) here, with the low contrast light, the opposite is true, and a +1.3 seems reasonable to me. Underexposing, and it seems likely this happened here, is very detrimental as far as digital noise is concerned, especially at ISO 1600. I've stated this before; noise is a largely low luminosity beast, and under low contrast light you can shift the histogram curve to the right (toward overexposure) quite a bit and eliminate a great deal of the low luminosity elements. Then reduce exposure to normal in post-processing.
Whites, being high luminosity, are resistant to noise, and even at ISO 1600 very light parts of an image will show little noise. I'm not talking about blown(clipped) whites, but even these have the potential to be recovered in ACR given the lighting conditions of this image(low contrast).
Therefore, although you may have needed noise reduction for the background, your subject could have gone with out it. Hope I've been helpful~Bill

[Bill Dix]

Hi Bill How big was the bird? The bill looks like a reddish egret white morph !!

Alfred - a very interesting thought which I hadn't considered since I'm not very familiar with the reddish egrets. I recall that the bird did seem bigger than a LBH. Looking at Sibley, the shaggy plumes might be a telltale indicator of the egret, as well as the heavy bill. Maybe this could explain the rosy breast color as well. Perhaps I should post it on Avian ID, or is this enough for you to tell?

[WIlliam Maroldo]

It is a juvenile little blue heron. I've seen and photographed many of them; they are about the size of a snowy egret, maybe a bit smaller. I would bet dollars to donuts it is a little blue. The purple hue on the breast is a reflection, most likely. regards~Bill

[Bill Dix]

Hi Bill, Looks like you made the best image you could under the circumstances. Nice pose and HA. I would try cloning out the raindrops, and I might also crop tighter especially on the top.

Christopher - I had tried a tighter crop, but didn't like it as much (partly because of the poor IQ) so I initially posted the wider version. Here's the tighter crop version. I'd appreciate your thoughts. I quickly cloned out some of the raindrops but didn't do it with the usual care so some clone marks probably show. (Thought I had posted this last night, but when I checked this morning it wasn't there; must have forgotten to hit the 'submit' button.0

[Bill Dix]

Nice composition and subject. The magenta cast on the bottom of the bird is worrisome, I'd be inclined take a saturation brush to it with a fairly low opacity, assuming you are using PS. Although a - EV is useful with white birds under high contrast situations (direct sunlight) here, with the low contrast light, the opposite is true, and a +1.3 seems reasonable to me. Underexposing, and it seems likely this happened here, is very detrimental as far as digital noise is concerned, especially at ISO 1600. I've stated this before; noise is a largely low luminosity beast, and under low contrast light you can shift the histogram curve to the right (toward overexposure) quite a bit and eliminate a great deal of the low luminosity elements. Then reduce exposure to normal in post-processing.
Whites, being high luminosity, are resistant to noise, and even at ISO 1600 very light parts of an image will show little noise. I'm not talking about blown(clipped) whites, but even these have the potential to be recovered in ACR given the lighting conditions of this image(low contrast).
Therefore, although you may have needed noise reduction for the background, your subject could have gone with out it. Hope I've been helpful~Bill

Thank you Bill. That's helpful. I'm sure the under-exposing didn't help me here - I was probably concerned with blowing the whites. Truth is, I spotted the bird from the car, quickly pre-set the camera and wrapped the camera, and my head, inside an old plastic raincoat. Took two quick shots in the rain and couldn't check the histogram from inside my shroud before the bird moved off behind some higher vegetation. There was some noise even on the white bird, and I think I did run some NR or Topaz De-JPEG on the bird (I usually only do so on the BG), wiping out what little feather detail there might have been. I'll just have to go find him again. Thanks for taking the time to comment.