Little Blue Heron Fishing

[Walker Noe]

I took this shot in Costa Maya, Mexico. Waded out into the sea and sat down in shallow water to shoot this guy fishing.

I loved the splash in this shot. I think it makes the image a keeper despite the less-than-ideal HA. It does seem to have a slight color cast, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it could use some straightening too.
D7100/300f4

300mm
f4
ISO 100
1/1250
Handheld

Brightness, clarity and contrast sliders in PSE 11, along with USM on the body at 90%, pixel size .9, threshold 3 levels.

Any comments and critique (be as detailed as you can, I need the feedback) are much appreciated.

Walker

[Jon Pugmire]

I love the colors, the water was caught beautifully, the light and color caught in the splash and fish correlate nicely for me with the trail of water connecting the two. A slight overall green cast? I would clone out some of the droplets, especially the white spot directly above the beak and the one near the eye, then maybe the ones on the neck also. Lightening the head (pulling up the shadows) maybe? It would be nice if the eye had a little more pop.

[Diane Miller]

I'm on the road for a few days and just on an iPhone now. It looks like a very nice image! I'll have a closer look when I can. You'll get good feedback here!

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Nice action caught beautifully, Walker! I would have preferred the full bird in focus but you've got the most important section in focus. I'd only remove the white drop in front of the bill. Nice shot!

[Diane Miller]

Having a better look now on my laptop, but it's still not the best view. I'd go to a higher ISO and a smaller aperture next time. The DOF is limited here, with the body OOF. It may also be some movement, but the SS looks OK.

I don't mind the head angle, and love the low angle and action caught! It pays to get low, even if it means getting wet!

The slight bluish color is from the camera's choice of white balance, which is only a guess. Look at the WB slider in your raw converter. You are shooting raw? You absolutely should be.

Looking forward to seeing more from you!

[Walker Noe]

Diane--Thanks for your comments. I was actually there with my whole family, and in my swim trunks swimming with my little brother, so it was easy to commit to walking out as deep in the water as I had to. You're right about the ISO, but the rear of the bird is actually pointed at about 7:30, so a smaller aperture would not have brought it in focus like having the bird on a plane would have. But we get what we get. I also wanted to blow out the waves as much as possible. BTW, I do usually shoot RAW, but the D7100's buffer is not large enough for these sequences where I was shooting 10 continuous frames. So no RAW for this image.

Jon--I removed some of the droplets and reprocessed. Hopefully the image has some more "pop."

Tobie--Thanks for your feedback. I would also love to have the whole body in focus, but as I said to Diane, I couldn't get that because of the angle of its body.

Here is a repost:

[Diane Miller]

I didn't really see how much the bird is angled, but I can see it now that you've told me! (Duh...) You're right, a smaller aperture wouldn't have been enough.

You got the focus where it needed to be, and caught great action. You had good soft light to I don't see a penalty here with shooting JPEG. And I neglected to mention how cool it is that the color of the splash shows how well the fish is (or was) camouflaged.