Bllue Heron in Illinois

[Hazel Grant]

Still working on bird photos, not my strongest area. This very cooperative heron let me take many photos before getting a bit impatient and "talking" to tell me "enough". Slight crop of background, mild denies/sharpening. Sunset. Slightly cloudy sky. Nikon D7000. 1/500, f4.5, iso 400. focal length 150.

[Diane Miller]

Hi Hazel, good to see you working on birds -- they are a fun challenge!

A couple of thoughts here. The bird seems well focused and is an interesting pose. But the left foot is very close to the edge of the frame -- always good to keep some extra room as straightening a horizon is often necessary and can crowd things like that.

The BG is competing with the softly-colored subject a little more than is ideal. You might try some desaturation of yellows and oranges, but might have to mask it out in parts of the bird. This might have made a nice in-camera vertical which would eliminate some of the BG, but wouldn't solve the problem of the head being a bit lost against the BG. If you could have gotten to your left a little more you might have been able to put the head against water, or at least a more distant and softer BG -- but that's easy to say for someone who wasn't there. Or you might have been able to get lower and put more of the bird against sky. I always try to think about bracketing composition, as things can look different in the computer than they did (or than I thought they did) through the viewfinder.

What variations did you try? Would be interesting to compare to this one.

[Hazel Grant]

I did about 30 shots of him (her?) as I slowly walked forward. I'll check re backgrounds. Good points. I did add some canvas this afternoon to the bottom and then added feet and more railing and I think that helped, but the head thing I'll have to check on. thanks.

[Sandy Witvoet]

Hi Hazel! A bit late here. Heron looks good and open bill adds to the interest. I think you did well with the BG considerations... If you had moved to the right, the BG might be better, but angle of bird would not. If you had moved to the left, the Heron's head would likely fall right in front of what looks like some OOF buildings. Perhaps may be just a tiny bit underexposed? Herons have a habit of "perching" in the most unusual places (like on top of our boat!) That said, good capture! Last thought... I agree with Diane, if you can tone down the BG a bit, the Heron will pop a bit more. (From my old "graphics" days, we always had to watch for "red vs. blue" ... red comes forward to the eye, blue recedes.) Thanks so much for sharing!