Great Blue Heron feeding fledgling at Venice

Or, about to feed the fledgling anyway. The mother obviously has something in her crop, and seems to be communicating to the young one: "Wait till you see what I have caught for YOU!"

Taken this January at Venice. PP in LR 4.4. Cropped for composition. Selective sharpening and NR on BG. I did some slight blurring of the BG too. I went back and forth on a vertical vs. landscape orientation. I would appreciate and learn from any thoughts on this portrait.

Canon 1D IV, ISO 1600
500 mm f/4L IS
1/640 sec. at f/8.0
AV mode at 0 EC
No flash
Spot metering on gray parts of Heron.

Thanks!

Crop works for me. Great interaction, exposure looks good. I might tone down those leaves above the head but I know its the environment at Venice. Nice job on this one!

Very nice capture Dennis.
The birds are exposed well and are very sharp and clear. Great pose with the chicks bill opened around the moms bill. Both birds eyes have perfect visibility and I love the pin feathers with the down on them. Very appealing shot.

very nice interaction with good details and colors.

hmmmm....kinda makes me glad I was bottle fed

Nicely detailed and gotta love the eyes/look on both birds....momma looks fed up ...and junior is. well just plain hyperactive lol
Great interaction Dennis and the dof is nice and uniform on both birds

Excellent story telling, with nice lines created by the beaks and eyes. Techs look good as does your background. A crop up from the bottom to the base of the chick's extended wing improves it for me, even if it does become just a bit square.

Techs and processing look great Dennis. Your ccrop has us zoned-in to the interaction. Love the look on the youngster's face, and especially the messy hair :-) I like those leaves above, but the larger oval one grabs my attention a bit and could be darkened to lessen its' impact. What is the dark speckling under the adult's chin?

Thank you everyone.

Sharp eyes, Daniel. Those black dots were caused by the adjustment brush in auto mask mode while I was blurring the BG, and after turning off auto mask, I had to zoom in to 2:1 to fix it. Auto mask mode, using the adjustment brush, seems to be very sensitive to minor changes in tonality, hence the "speckled" area. There ought to be a "sensitivity" adjustment slider for the brush in auto mask mode. Maybe I'll write to Adobe about that possibility.

Very ice interaction. I think the repost worked for me.

Great interaction captured.

Fully auctioned packed image with great IQ and expression.Love the frame.

Regards,
Satish.

One of the best interaction images on this species I've ever seen Dennis. Your timing couldn't be any better. The fact that the eyes are visible on both is what makes this image. Love the incredulous expression on the youngster and the indifferent expression on the adult.
The dof is perfect and the details are rich. Excellent work!

Thank you Satish and Sidharth.