GBH Post Sunset Silhouette

[Noel Heustis]

This Great Blue Heron was gracious enough to allow me to practice silhouettes on him during and after an amazing sunset at Fort D. This one was taken after the sun had gone down.
Below are short rundowns of settings and my post processing:

Canon 7Dii and 100-400mm ii
ISO 800
AV ƒ/8
TV 1/250
Focal Length 400mm
Manual Exposure / Servo / Manually Focused / WB set in Camera to 7500k

Processed in DPP4 and PScc. In PS I made levels adjustments to the bird and to the water.

Thanks for taking the time to look. As always, telling me what you like about the shot, and what might improve the final product is appreciated.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Beautiful!! I love these types of silhouette portraits. The gradient BG is perfect. I'd be OK with the subject a bit more to the right of the frame, but not by much. Very peaceful image, lots to like here!

[gail bisson]

The BG colors are amazing.
For my taste, I find the image a bit too long and would crop a bit off the bottom.
I like the wayward/windblown feathers on the neck,
gail

[Alex Becker]

I love the color gradient and image design here, as well as the details we still get on the neck / chin. I'm okay with the crop as is, but also can see slightly less on the bottom as suggested. TFS

[John Mack]

Classic silhouette here. Love the colors in the background. Nice and sharp. Well done.

[Glenn Pure]

The gradient from top to bottom is really nice in this, Noel. I would also move the framing a bit to the left (so bird is more on the right) and perhaps a bit smaller in the frame if the background allowed this. All in all, a very attractive shot.

[Noel Heustis]

Thanks all for the suggestions. I kept a bunch of frames from this particular evening and I have frames with different compositions: some of them with the subject more to the right; some showing the subject with less of the neck; and some when the sun was still up. I'll probably present another one in the next week or so. Looking through the keepers, the light is different every few frames. I'm glad to hear some overall positive feedback.