Pterodactyl-like Juvenile Little Blue Heron Landing

[Melissa Groo]

Canon 1D Mark IV
500mm
Handheld while sitting

ISO 1000
1/2000 sec
f/4.0

Another from my time down in Florida a couple weeks ago. This is a juvenile Little Blue Heron. I remember being so confused by all the white herons/egrets down in FL when I first started getting into bird photography a couple years ago. All those white egret species. And then there's the rarer white morphs of the Great Blue Heron and the Reddish Egret. And then I found out the Little Blue Heron is all white in its first year and I was feeling like I would never get it straight. Having been to Florida a few times in the last couple years, think I finally have it figured out...
This Little Blue made me think of a pterodactyl. Thank you to Cheryl Molennor for taking me to this spot in the Tampa area.
I raised Exp, Sharpened, ran NR only on BG, and lightened some darkish patches in back. Also repaired one small wing rip.
Thanks so much in advance for any and all comments and critiques.

[gail bisson]

Hi Melissa,
I really like the BG on this image and the comp is perfect.Tack sharp and like the green legs. The BG has a Reubens feel to it.
I didn't know that first year little blues were white. Thanks for the lesson!
Your PP is really good and I am guessing that the rip was on the sixth primary tip on birds left side?
I see a bit of noise in the whites on the belly and tail due to underexposure in camera and then raising exposure in PP. I would selectively run a tiny little bit of NR on these areas only.
Did you raise the exposure much?
Gail

[Melissa Groo]

Hey Gail. Thanks for your feedback. I raised the EXP 1.05. The feather I filled in was the 9th one in on the primaries. The 6th one in looks a little funky but that's the way it was.
Have gone back in to address that noise issue, thanks for picking it up. Hope this repost addresses it.

[gail bisson]

Repost looks good!Well done on the tip repair! You fooled me!
Gail

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Repost works and the bg was really good from the start. Nice gliding in pose and I remember fondly how they would do that then switch to the crazy zig zag wacky flight thing they do which is almost impossible to capture but Im gonna try.:) Detail looks great on the bird as well and I think you did real well with this considering the bad light we had.Looking forward to you April visit so we can go back out with Cap'n James and the Deaux

[Randy Stout]

Melissa:

I like the pose, good wing spread, dangling legs, clean view of head.

Yes to the brushstroke background.

In a perfect world, I wish the bird was a bit brighter yet, but with the noise issue, this could be your best compromise.

Cheers

Randy

[Randy Stout]

Melissa:

Just for the fun of it, I present a different interpretation of your original. The quality is really starting to suffer with jpeg artifacts in the BG, but I raised the whites to the 225-235 range in the brightest areas, and fiddled with the contrast and saturation of the BG.


Again, very different feel from the original, but I think you have several options on how to handle the rather dull light here.

A little fill flash at the time of capture would have helped as well.

Cheers

Randy

[PhilCook]

Pterodactyl...........okaaaaaaaaaaaaay ? I can live with that hehehehe

Lovely tinning and whites nicely exposed and placed in the frame perfectly I think, preferring the original version most of all with the muted backdrop........I'm thinking more Angel than Pterodactyl.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Melissa:

Just for the fun of it, I present a different interpretation of your original. The quality is really starting to suffer with jpeg artifacts in the BG, but I raised the whites to the 225-235 range in the brightest areas, and fiddled with the contrast and saturation of the BG.


Again, very different feel from the original, but I think you have several options on how to handle the rather dull light here.

A little fill flash at the time of capture would have helped as well.

Cheers

Randy

This looks pretty good too Randy. Maybe even somewhere in between?

[Melissa Groo]

Thanks for your time and effort on that, Randy. I see what you mean and will try raising the exposure a bit on my version at home, on the original, to see how that looks.

[Randy Stout]

Cheryl and Melissa:

Often on the reposts, I overshoot a bit, to be sure the difference is visible, but I do think a compromise version might work well. Def. would lighten the bird. Because of the whites, the noise doesn't become too noticeable to me.

Cheers

Randy

[Marina Scarr]

Lovely flight pose on this little blue, and I really like Randy's interpretation, but would probably go somewhere in between. Colors are gorgeous.

[dankearl]

I like the repost you did Melissa, just right for me. Randy's is too bright.
Great BG you have here and you fixed the noise.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Melissa, the flight pose with the wingspread shows off nicely against the darker BG. Lovely whites, and I do like the dangling legs. Randy did state that his repost was pushed a touch to show the difference, but still interesting to see the two different shades of 'white'.

[Nick Palmieri]

Nice capture. great wingspan!

[Karl Egressy]

Nice landing pose and interestring background, Melissa.

[arash_hazeghi]

sweet pose and details Melissa! it stands out nicely against the dark BG

[Sidharth Kodikal]

You've captured an excellent pose against a very nice bg, Melissa. I think you could have given up some of that SS for more light that way you wouldn't have had to raise the exposure in PP (or raised the iso).
Anyway, the end product looks great - definitely a keeper.