Little Blue Heron

[Joel Eade]

Alafia River, Florida

EOS 1D MKIII
500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4 TC II
Tripod + Wimberly II
manual mode
evaluative metering
1/1250
f/9
iso 400

processed with ACR and CS5 on MacBook Pro

comments and critiques welcomed

[Julie Kenward]

Joel, I defintely like the wing position better in this image but I miss the foot breaking water as he walks. You got a very nice HA here and the pose is very strong. The overall image feels a little dark to me - might try to bring up the midtones just a bit more or do a contrast adjustment and see what you think.

If you want to get super picky, I'd clean up the white spots on the black areas of the beak and the small spots on his neck - they are very minor but those little details can sometimes make a huge difference in the overall image.

[Stuart Hill]

Hi Joel, personally would like a little separation between rear wing and head/bill. Like the sense of action occurring but frozen with the water droplets. Have you tried a landscape crop?

regards.
Stu.

[James Shadle]

Joel,
This must have been during "bonus time" because the light is looking pretty harsh.
On my monitor the image looks sharp and well exposed.

IMO if the bill did not intersect the left wing and the image was cropped as a landscape with more space in front, it would be a stronger image.

[Joel Eade]

Thanks Julie, Stuart and James. I re-worked the raw image per your suggestions. James you are correct this was one of the later morning images (10:00 am on the exif data)......no doubt past the point of the sweetest light but I do appreciate you letting me continue to shoot for awhile since my opportunities are limited.

For anyone reading this I have to whole heartedly recommend James Shadle to anyone who is looking to go out for a photo workshop. I only had one day but during that day: I had a great time, I learned not only about photography but about birds, nature and the local environment, I shot a lot of images of several different species and some of them are pretty good! Anyway it was a great experience and I would love to do it again, thanks James.