Black-crowned Night-Heron

[Bill Dix]

From Ocean City Rookery several weeks ago.

D500, Sigma 150-600 @ 360 mm, ISO 800, 1/2500s @ f/6.3 manual.

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the pose and the light, sharp enough. The BG looks a bit strange, did you apply blur to smoothen it?

TFS

[Alex Becker]

Another nice one from the rookery. Nice view of the eye and I like that you got the feet in there still. These guys are tough to nail in flight and I like this pose. Almost looks like a duck. Agree the BG looks a bit too posterized. TFS

[John Whaley]

Beautiful light and pose. It looks sharp, detailed and the catch light adds to it.

[gail bisson]

i think this is terrific.A great flight position and tack sharp to boot.
Whites look great and I like the unusual neck position.
I am ok with the BG
Gail

[John Mack]

Love the wing position here. The background does appear to have some banding or something. Still great flight image.

[Mike Poole]

Fantastic capture of the bird with an unusual pose and great details. BG is a little funky as mentioned, sure theres a simple reason.

Mike

[Bill Dix]

Thank you all for your comments. Yes, Arash, I did use blur on the bg. I'm not seeing any major posterization or banding, but I do think I pushed the smoothing too far. I find that shooting at rookeries often involves birds flying very close to busy vegetation. In this case I liked the flight pose and was over-eager to give it some separation.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Bill, as I have mentioned to you in the past, blurring the BG does not work for those who are used to seeing natural bokeh, it just looks fake or "plasticy" for lack of a better word. I could immediately tell something was wrong. you need to get it right in the camera when flying farther from the BG.

[Bill Dix]

Yes, Arash, I knew how you felt about blurs, and figured I'd hear from you on this one. I couldn't agree more, that it's better to get it right in the camera. I could have 'binned' all of my frames from this outing, since the birds in flight there are generally too close to the rookery vegetation, but figured it was worth trying to salvage this one. I should note that I have used blurs on many images where BPNers have said "I love the background" or words to that effect (but, I'll admit, not from you). So I'll keep trying, first to get it right in the camera when possible, and second, to make the best of the situation I'm faced with. I do appreciate your comments and have learned a tremendous amount from them and from your images.