Great Blue Heron Closeup

[Steven Kersting]

Happened upon this heron who just didn't care.... I actually had to back up because he was inside my minimum focus distance.
Handheld with the SigMonster. I wish I had taken a little more time and checked my settings. Even at f/8 from that close my DOF is a little short. I wish the tip of the bill was sharper but I don't think it really "detracts", do you?
Do you think a tighter crop would work better? I tried a few options and settled on this for now.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/skersting/5519837754/" title="Great Blue Heron Closeup by skersting66, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5296/5519837754_f457f395f8_b.jpg" width="818" height="1000" alt="Great Blue Heron Closeup" /></a>

Camera Nikon D3
Exposure 0.001 sec (1/1000)
Aperture f/8.0
Focal Length 800 mm
ISO Speed 200
Exposure Bias -1/3 EV

[Randy Stout]

Steve:

Nice to find a cooperative GBH up north, usually pretty shy.

Harsh light( dark shadows), so working in tight is usually a good idea.

Yes, more DOF would be nice. You often can help this situation by focusing a bit down the bill, so the DOF will cover both the eye and the tip of the bill. Better to sacrifice a little sharpness on the back and shoulder than on the tip of the bill.

It looks a bit oversharpened for my taste, but easy to do in a high contrast situation.

I would crop down a bit form the top for comp. reasons.

Might consider darkening the iris a bit, it looks washed out from the bright light.

Cheers

Randy

[Steven Kersting]

Crop, Eye enhancement, and a very light softening (removed from eye)

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/skersting/5519346245/" title="_SK10950-Edit-Edit.jpg by skersting66, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5093/5519346245_f34ea85a76_b.jpg" width="617" height="792" alt="_SK10950-Edit-Edit.jpg" /></a>

Better? I think so.

[Randy Stout]

Steve:

I like the crop on the repost.

When you say softening, did you back off on the sharpening, reduce the contrast or something else?

Randy

[Ken Roberts]

Very nice job. I like the redo also. Quite a nice photo!

[Steven Kersting]

Steve:

I like the crop on the repost.

When you say softening, did you back off on the sharpening, reduce the contrast or something else?

Randy

What I did, rather than start over, was to create a duplicate layer with a 1px gaussian blur @ 25% opacity.....Not the best way of going about it.

I'll probably start over from RAW w/ this one.

[Steven Kersting]

Very nice job. I like the redo also. Quite a nice photo!

Thank you.

[Randy Stout]

What I did, rather than start over, was to create a duplicate layer with a 1px gaussian blur @ 25% opacity.....Not the best way of going about it.

I'll probably start over from RAW w/ this one.

Steve:

Def. start over, just too unreliable/unpredictable to try and reprocess in that way.

Cheers

Randy