Great White Egret eating

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

I was at the Sebastian Inlet a couple of days ago and watched and photographed this Great white Egret while he fished for his dinner. It was late in the afternoon and the light was extremely favorable. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Shooting info: Nikon D4, 80-400 f/4.5 -5.6mm lens at 400mm. ISO-800, f/5.6, 1/1600sec.

Thanks
Mac

[Grace Scalzo]

I haven't seen you posting for a while, Mac. Good to see your work again, although I may have missed it (work has been crushing my participation).
As for you photo, it's a classic and what really makes this one is that the eyes of both the fish and the bird are visible. I like the idea of a tight portrait, but to me this is a bit too tight. I do not think that you would loose any impact from loosening it up. I also think that the bird could sit higher in the frame. There are a few processing issues with the whites of the neck looking hot and lacking detail, there's a dark halo around the bird and the bg is noisy. I'll leave it to those better versed in Photoshop than me to comment on how to fix those issues. With a bit of polish, I think you have a great image here.

[John Rowell]

Nice sharp portrait shot and you did well to get the eyes of both bird and fish. I really like the feathers pointing up at the bottom of its neck, very cool details. The light is perfect for this image, too bad it got just a bit hot on the left side. I'd agree with Grace that some NR on the background would help out here.

[Ivan Sjögren]

Beautiful setting. The light is amazing which makes for a great portrait. It's a big plus that you can see the eye of both the bird and the fish. Is it a big crop? Because I don't think the IQ seems to cut it here and that may be a factor to some of the allready mentioned problems. I do argee with Grace that this image would do good with some more room all around and that you placed the bird higher in the frame. With a new round in PS this could be something great!

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. This is a repost and I did a little work on it to see if it is improved. I do not know what is causing the black halo around the bird and so I could do nothing about it, but I tried to incorporate the changes you suggested. What do you think?

Thanks

Mac

[arash_hazeghi]

It's a great frame but I agree with Grace it has been let down by non-optimal processing. the re-post got a lot more noisy than the original while the details look coarse and crunchy. Given your equipment, producing a clean sharp frame from this scene should not be an issue at all.

I recommend you invest a bit in post processing lessons or tutorials.

TFS

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

This will be my last try. No PS used, only lightroom adjustments. Thanks arash for your thoughts. I happen to like this best.

[Grace Scalzo]

Night and Day difference! Is this the same image ? So much better. Less saturated, less noise, better comp. There is some remnant of processing in the lower left corner. Good job sticking with this one and ending up with a nice piece of photography.

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

Thanks Grace- It almost looks like a different shot, but it's not. I noticed the problem in the LL but I am using a Microsoft Surface and I find it very difficult to do LR or PS on as it is quite a small screen. I am using it for my travel computer and it works fine for that. Thanks again for all the help.