Great Blue Heron In Flight

[Tony Ardillo]

Canon 1Dx II with Tamron 150-600mm @ 600mm f9 1/1000sec, ISO 1600, handheld. He caught me off guard, so the settings were what they were. I was shooting geese when I realized he was right in front of me. He promptly said I'm out-a-here! No time to fix, so just shot away!

In post used NR on background and various other NR paint brushes on the body and highlight reduction. Since 1DxII and 5D4 bodies blow highlights easily, the metering mode of spot wreaked havoc on parts of this image.

Any and all comments are welcome to help improve.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Tony, well done for getting this large fellow in the frame for a grab shot. The wing position is not ideal, as fully extended upwards, or a full down stroke would have been better. Overall, I feel the image has far too much contrast.

[arash_hazeghi]

this image has a number of issues apart from wing position mentioned by Stu, the distracting bright BG against the dark bird grabs the viewer's attention. The bird is too large in the frame, contrasty and IQ isn't good. it looks like you applied too much noise reduction that has softened the details and made the image contrasty

TFS

[Tim Foltz]

Tony, Remember it's all about the light, preferably behind you and either in the morning or later on in the afternoon.
As Stu said the wing position is not ideal and as Arash stated subject is to cramped in the frame and needs to be a bit higher. Keep it up you'll get the hang of it.

-Tim