Another day with the Green Herons

[laurie golden]

After a few days photographing green herons on cloudy days, I finally got some sunlight and was able to increase the speed. This heron ate about 6 fish while I watched him yesterday morning. I was trying for action and got several photos with the heron's head completely in the water and a few just out of the water with a fish. This is one where he immediately turned his head after catching the fish as if he was afraid someone would steal it.

Nikon D3S, 500mm f4 lens
ISO 800, F8, 1/1600 sec
Manual Exposure
10% crop on left and top

[Daniel Cadieux]

I really like the action you got here, nice pose, and the dropping water adds lots of interest. Good perch, and I like the shadows in the water. Sharp and well exposed. I do wish you had pointed your lens left and down. The WB is off...much too yellow and cyan. Try adding some reds and blues in "Color Balance", I'm sure you'll like the result.

[Jack Breakfast]

Laurie the green goop all over GH's legs is quite appealing! If that's the right word! Also, the sparkling greenish water droplets? Oh boy! This picture is odd, but in a great way. I like the shadows also...I do agree with Daniel RE the annoying unchangeables, but as-is this is still an intriguing and exciting moment captured!

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Very nice timing and great detail throughout. If you can, re-add the crop from the left and (if you can) extend it further. Then crop from the right a bit. I also agree with the tint fix.

[Marina Scarr]

I am loving the action/behavior captured here but the crop simply doesn't do it justice.

[laurie golden]

Thank you everyone for the advise. I struggled with the crop on this photo. In the previous photo he was looking to the left and had just pulled the fish out of the water. I must admit that I jumped when he did and moved the camera to the right a little, but not as far as the original post. When I cropped it I thought the best crop would be on the left because he was looking right even though the water drops were going left. Here is a change in crops and I added a little canvas on the left too. Also changed the auto white balance to sunny to try to correct the color - don't know if this helped. When I look at both I still like the original crop better.

[Marina Scarr]

Hi Laurie:

Your repost crop is much better but the colors still look off. Here's my stab at adjusting the colors with Color Balance. I also altered the crop slightly. This is a very nice action/behavior image, and I think it's worth working on.

[laurie golden]

Maria and Daniel,

Are you saying the color balance is off from looking at the water or the bird? The water is a strange color but I think that it is accurate in the original post. It has a lot of algae in it and probably a lot of other non-organic stuff so the blue is a strange color and where the shadows are it looks purple.

[Jack Breakfast]

You have rescued this picture! The new composition is much better. A great shot, Laurie, that's for sure...Marina's color balance gives you those accurate green heron colors, but the water is a different story. I like Marina's crop the best, but prefer the water color in the original. Only you can know about the color of the water...and perhaps also the heron but he ain't talking

[Marina Scarr]

Are you saying the color balance is off from looking at the water or the bird? The water is a strange color but I think that it is accurate in the original post. It has a lot of algae in it and probably a lot of other non-organic stuff so the blue is a strange color and where the shadows are it looks purple.

I judged by looking at the bird, however, when I applied the color balance layer I applied it to the entire picture.

[Sachin Saraf]

This is beautiful capture..Marina addressed the color issue...

[Andrew Merwin]

I really like the action, the water droplets, the visible eye & the fish. Great image.

[laurie golden]

I just tried the color balance adjustments in curves on this photo. Is this the right color?

[Daniel Cadieux]

Laurie, the colour of your repost in pane #13 is just what I expect a Green Heron's colours to look like.