Green Heron Perched On Fire Flag Stalk...

[Joseph Przybyla]

I captured this image at Circle B Bar Reserve in Polk County, Florida. The Fire Flag plant blossoms attract birds like iron to a magnet. You can read about Circle B, Fire Flag, and lots more in The Birds As Art Middle of Florida Photography Guide. The guide will be available soon in the Birds As Art Online Store. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Nikon D500
Nikon 80-400mm F/4.5-5.6 VRII AF-S ED, image captured at 400mm
1/1600 F/5.6 Matrix Metering EV 0 ISO 640 Auto 1 WB, camera supported by a monopod
Post processed in Lightroom Classic, Photoshop CC 2019 and Neat Image for noise reduction
Cropped for composition and presentation

[gail bisson]

i would be thrilled to have this in my files. So nice to see this heron out in the open with a very pleasing diagonal perch.
Gail

[kevin Hice]

Nice shot Joe love the background colors. Not seeing the details on the head or maybe a little soft on my screen.Great perch very simple adds greatly. Showing the grip with the feet. TFS

[Florin Sandu]

Like the BG, the colors and the comp. It seems the head is a little bit soft.
TFS!

[Arthur Morris]

Killer perfect from here. The eye looks perfectly sharp. Love that BKGR!

with love, artie

ps: was this this year?

[Bill Dix]

Wonderful pose and great background. Thanks for sharing, Joe.

[John Mack]

Great frame of this green heron. Like the perfect pose and perch. Killer background as well.

[Ivan Sjogren]

Such a beautiful and clean setting. Great light, background and perch.
Exposure, comp and pose is all spot on.
I do agree with some of the earlier comments that the head seems soft though, the edge along the top of the head is especially soft. The original might be sharp though and maybe it is an effect of downsizing?

[Joseph Przybyla]

Thanks everyone for viewing and commenting, very much appreciated.

Those that commented that the top of the head appeared soft were correct, nice to have other sets of eyes. I am not sure what it was but something funky was happening, the pixels when zoomed up were not sharp. It may have been a transition from the green of the crest feathers to the background or maybe some of the crest feathers in that part of the head were slightly raised and a tad out of focus. I checked the focus, the active autofocus point was locked onto the neck area just below the head and the depth of field was 0.31m so plenty depth of field. I fixed the edge on the top of the head in Photoshop. Here is a repost.