Yellow-crowned Night Heron

[denise ippolito]

Canon 7D
500mm +1.4 ex
ISO 320
1/1250 SEC. AT F/8
HH
FF with just a sliver off for comp.

[Joe Senzatimore]

Not an easy bird to get this close to. Image is wonderful , with great comp. and detail. Love the BG as it pops the image.

[Arthur Morris]

You made an excellent image, surely better than my best one of the same bird. HA, BKGR, SH, EXP, raised crest, all perfect! But nothing could save that salt-encrusted bill. Wait. There is one thing that could save it! See the next pane. BTW to Joe; there are lots of tame yellow-crowneds at various Florida locations.

[Doug Brown]

I like the 3D look to this image and the raised crest feathers Denise. Perfect exposure. Perhaps a little oversharpened. I do wish for a little more eye contact.

[Arthur Morris]

Now this is a rocking Fract and the bill looks great!

[denise ippolito]

Artie, It looks awesome. I love it:):)

[Doug Brown]

Awesome repost Artie!

[Grace Scalzo]

Great work, you two!

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Denise, killer details and BG. exposure spot on. Loved it. I am waiting for them to arrive here. One of my favorite birds.

Artie, the fract is stunning, to say the least.

[Danny J Brown]

Great close-up, Denise. I love the salty bill - you've captured the real world of nature there! Artie's redo is pretty cool as well. The eye is awesome in both versions.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Hi Denise. Great image. I really like the plumes. A few things I noticed. Seems a bit overexposed, at least on my monitor. Knowing these guys pretty well, I think the dark head feathers are a bit darker than in your image. The whites seem right; maybe a curves adjustment? Also a bit oversharpened, IMO. Well done. regards~Bill

[Arthur Morris]

IMO, the EXP is spot on (with the calibration strip spot on as well) and the image is not over-sharpened. There are no problems with the edges, no pixelation, and no halos. It is just a near-full frame very sharp 7D image with lots of pixels. Really sharp images from both the 50D and the 7D can seem to scream off the screen as this one does.

[Kiran Poonacha]

Beautiful Denise, nice intense looks and good expo too. loved the crown feathers..

good peice of Art guruji...

[RakeshDhareshwar]

That is CLOSE !!! The shallow DOF gives a nice 3D effect ! Artie's repost is surreal indeed !!

[Arthur Morris]

For those of you who are not familiar with the Fractalius plug-in, you can check out some more of Denise's great Fracted images here: http://www.birdsasart.com/bn315.htm or in the Out-of-the-Box Forum. You can see a few of mine here: http://www.birdsasart.com/bn316.htm And be sure to check out Denise's Fractalius tutorials by scrolling down here: http://deniseippolito.smugmug.com/Photography/On/9597965_bsEhJ

[Hendri Venter]

Perfect in every way Denise. Stunning close-up.

Artie's Fract version rocks too.

[Myer Bornstein]

Both the images are great in their own way

[denise ippolito]

Thank you all for your comments. Much appreciated.

Bill, I went back to the original and tried to adj. the curves. I was able to lower it by a couple of points w/o getting the BG too dark. I think it does look a slight bit better. Thanks:)
I do feel it looks sharp but IMO not over sharp. I do realize that it is very subjective.

Artie, Your Frac. version really is fantastic looking.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Denise, that head and beak are so sharp. I like the curved crest, and the comp woks for me. Great repost by Artie.