Tricolored Heron

[Mike Landwehr]

This tricolored heron was sitting on a large snag on a windy morning. The "golden hour" was well past when I made this image, but the less-than-desirable light angle aligned well with the bird's head angle, providing a little side-lighting on the bird's body. Adjusted exposure and temp slightly, cropped, bumped sat, adjusted color balance slightly, and sharpened. All C & C appreciated.

1D Mark II N
500mm + 2.0x
ISO 200
1/400 @ f/8
Tripod, no flash

[Randy Stout]

Mike:

For me, the image is about the head and neck, which are well illuminated as you mentioned, so the lighting is effective for me.

Simple, clean background.

Might fiddle with reducing the contrast selectively on face/lores area just to see how you like it, but to my eye, the contrast isn't particularly harsh however, looking at the shadows.

Cheers

Randy

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

I find the light quite good actually. I think the fact it's a darker bird helps. If it looked towards you ever so slightly more it would add some more punch to the overall aesthetics IMHO. Great BG too! :) TFS