Black Crowned Night Heron

[Alex Becker]

Hi all,

Here's a Black Crowned Night Heron from about a week ago at the Jersey Shore. Hard to get these guys on a completely clean perch. In post, I did some tonal adjustments, some noise reduction, cloned out a twig on the LHS, sharpened. Slight crop.

Camera: Nikon D500
Lens: 200-500mm f/5.6 at 500mm
Specs: 1/1600 ISO 450 f/7.1


Thanks for looking!
Alex

[Joseph Przybyla]

Nice work on the bird, I'm on my tablet, looks good here. I have never seen one in a evergreen tree before. Unfortunate that the branches cover the feet. Thank you for sharing.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Good looking individual, clean feathers (ours often have dirty backs from birds roosting higher above in the colony). A bit tight in the frame, and I would fill in the the whitish area with some greens via careful clone tool use (with a soft brush). Good head angle, exposure.

[Alex Becker]

Thanks Joseph and Daniel. Also wish we could see the feet. I didn't even notice the white patch. I'll do a RP with that removed and more room all around when I get a chance today. Thanks!

[Melissa Usrey]

Beautiful close-up. My only issue is that my eyes are immediately drawn to the light blotch in the background.

[Bill Dix]

Lovely close-up with good pose and detail. Ditto the white patch.

[Alex Becker]

Thanks Melissa and Bill for the comments -- I've tried to remove the white patch in this RP. I haven't used the brush tool previously for cloning so hopefully this doesn't look too bad, but this was good practice and I may need to take another crack at it depending on how it looks to you all.

[Melissa Usrey]

That looks great!!!!