Great Blue Heron

[Robin Prange]

Great Blue Heron from this Fall in Connecticut. All comments greatly appreciated.
1Dmk4- 1/2000- 400.56- f5.6- iso-800 Hand held

[Ben_Sadd]

I like the position of the bird in the frame and the colours in the background. The light looks like it was pretty harsh, causing the hot whites on the head and shadows at the back of the bird. The head also looks a touch oversharpened to my eye.

[Randy Stout]

Robin:

Good points by Ben.
Nice fall colors in water, good full down pose.
Too much contrast on the bird, possibly effected by aggressive sharpening.

Such a long, stretched out bird, that I would prefer a bit more space on the left of the frame if you have it, to help balance him.

Cheers. Hope to see more from CT.

Randy

[Dan Busby]

Great colours and bird form Robin. It does look a bit harsh for lighting, which maybe was exaggerated by sharpening.

[Terry Olmsted]

Wonderful capture and colors, Robin. I agree with the others - less sharpening would make the
apparent lighting less harsh.

[Todd Frost]

Good comments and suggestions above. Over sharpening appears to be the bigest issue IMHO. Nice flight pose.
TFS
Todd

[Robin Prange]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. Being new to posting small files on the web I feel that there is something very wrong with my workflow for I can't seem to get the post to look anything like the original. When I preview the un-sharpened file it looks much softer that the original, much to my dismay. Then when I sharpen it, the post looks over sharpened and harsh compared to what I see on my computer. The photo was taken just before sunset and is cropped very little so the fine details are in the original. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated and I would love to do a re-post. All you guys and girls are responsible for getting me "addicted" to shooting birds so please help me out!!!:)
Thanks!
Robin

[Terry Olmsted]

Hi Robin,
I suggest posting in the 'Eager to Learn Image Critiques' forum. I know they will be most helpful. Don't be discouraged, it takes a while to get into this :)
Terry