Juvenile Little Blue Heron

[Joseph Przybyla]

Dottie and I traveled to Merritt Island NWR yesterday. Early morning, juvenile Little Blue Heron, Parrish Park, Titusville, Florida. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Nikon D7000
Nikon 80-400mm F/4.5-5.6 VRII AF-S ED shot at 400mm (600mm FFE)
1/2000 F/5.6 Matrix Metering - 1/3 EV ISO 360
Post processed in Lighroom 5 and Photoshop Elements 10
Cropped for composition

[andresleon]

I like the composition and the behavior. It seems a little noisy for me specially if you were at ISO 360.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Andres, thank you for viewing and commenting. I had used noise reduction on the background but deleted it. I didn't like the effect. Having begun photography with film/transparencies grain was part of the package so I am not as critical of noise maybe as someone only having done digital. Thanks again for viewing.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice pose captured, Joe.

[gary ellwein]

Good control of the whites. I like the birds pose. To my eye the image is too tight on the right.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Joseph very cool punky look and pose of the heron.
Nice light and comp , agree regarding noise , coming myself from using Velvia/Provia in the past still think there is too much noise , specially in the blueish parts of the heron . Is this a large crop ? IQ does not look that great compared to your other postings .
I might reduce the blues in the subject .

TFS Andreas

[Joseph Przybyla]

Thanks everyone for viewing and commenting. Sometimes one just gets too wrapped up in an image and tries to do too much. There is an old expression... You can't make silk out of a sow's ear. I guess I was trying to make silk. My apologies Andres, you were right. Andreas, yes it was a large crop... too large the IQ reflected that. I should have seen it. Here is the image as it should have been. I went back to the beginning and started over again. Thanks again everyone, you are very kind.

[William Dickson]

The repost is lovely Joe. Fantastic pose and colours on the bird which go well with the BG. I know what you mean by being wrapped up in an image. been there a few times myself. Thanks for sharing

Will