Great Blue Heron with Catfish

[Juan Tolentino]

This image was taken at Fort DeSoto park in Florida with the Nikon D750 Handheld and AF-S Nikkor 200-500mm 1-5.6E ED VR with TC 14E III
ISO 1600
f8
1/1600s
700mm
Manual Mode
LR for white balance and usual. PS for a little background cleanup and sharpening.
Crop approx. 50%



All C & C's will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for looking

JT

[Randy Stout]

Juan:

What a catch for the heron. Well exposed, shallow DOF.

The bird and fish appear a bit soft to me. Plenty of shutter speed, so not motion blur. The line of out of focus grass look pretty close if not spot on, perhaps just slightly anterior to the plane of the bird? Give it a bit more sharpening I think.

Yes, a significant crop, but would have not expected that to be a huge factor here.

Cheers

Randy

[Juan Tolentino]

Thank you Randy, Yes, I noticed that last night and didn't have time to try to fix. I just realized that I was doing things wrong and I need to sharpen after the downsize. I hope this one look better when is uploaded.

[Randy Stout]

Juan:

Yes, sharpness better. I meant to ask on the original post if you had done any work on the eye?

Cheers

Randy

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Juan, a great image for the theme, and what a catch for both of you - thats a fair size catfish. I like the proud pose of the Heron showing off his meal, and your choice of going vertical works well. Comp wise, I would like to see more space on the RHS, and you could take a little off the bottom too. Your repost has turned out for the better with regards to the sharpening.

[Juan Tolentino]

Randy, I applied a second level of sharpening to the eye on the original post.

[Juan Tolentino]

Thank you Stu, it really was a big fish and it was absolutely impressive to watch the Heron swallow this enormous fish. About the composition, how would you do it? changing the vertical-horizontal ratio? maybe a square crop?

[Jonathan Ashton]

Repost much better - nice capture. i too would suggest about another cm on the RHS.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Juan, here is what I had in mind. I added to the RHS, and took some off the bottom. I also decided to come in from the LHS a touch more too.

[Juan Tolentino]

Much better! Thank you Stu