Stabbing Heron

[Laura Pipkin]

Hi everyone,

I've been a BPN member for a couple of months but this is my first post on the forum.

I took the picture below with an Olympus E-510, Zuiko 70-300mm, 1/80s f/5.6 at 300.0mm iso400, handheld. I would apreciate your comments and critique.

Thanks much!

Laura

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Welcome to BPN, Laura! Very nice first post, great action captured and the eye contact is great, too. I might go for a vertical crop or put the bird further to the left in the frame and give it a bit more room at the top. The DOF is quite narrow, you might have gone to ISO 800 to stop down to f/8 or so. As it is, I would try to selectively sharpen the heron's head a bit more. Keep them coming!

[Arthur Morris]

Wow and welcome! Is that a largemouth or a smallmouth? What a great position for both the fish and the bird. The repost is as per Axel's excellent suggestions. The GBH was selectively sharpened.

[Laura Pipkin]

Thank you Axel and Arthur! I didn't realize that the picture will be downsized automatically when posted in this forum. It doesn't seem soft to me on my web site at "original size": http://www.pbase.com/pipkin/image/98037472

I still think I need to process the raw file again, I'm not very pleased with how it looks.

I agree with the composition, even though I never crop in the square format... I do very minimal cropping, i.e. I only cut the edges to fit a 5x7.

Again, many many thanks for your feedback!

Laura

[Maxis Gamez]

What a catch! and welcome!!

I was going to suggest a crop as presented by Artie. I also have to agree with Axel about eye contact.

[Arthur Morris]

Thank you Axel and Arthur! I It doesn't seem soft to me on my web site at "original size": http://www.pbase.com/pipkin/image/98037472 I agree with the composition, even though I never crop in the square format... I do very minimal cropping, i.e. I only cut the edges to fit a 5x7. Again, many many thanks for your feedback! Laura

Hi Laura, YAW. I checked the link and the head of the heron is soft there too. As in my repost, it needs to be selectively sharpened at whatever size... The sharp focus is--as it should be--on the fish.

As for minimal cropping, a crop to 5X7 is still a crop; why not crop to make the image look as good as possible. Who says that 3X2 or 5X7 is the only way to go? Not me. :) :) :) :D

[Dave Phillips]

what a catch Laura....you and the GBH.
I have seen them do snakes, frogs, catfish, crawfish, but never a large bass.

I wanted to play a little too if you don't mind......mostly some curves and selective sharpening and darkened bg a bit.
too much?

[Laura Pipkin]

Thanks so much, everyone! I'll re-process the file and follow your advise regarding cropping/composition and sharpening. I always do selective sharpening, but since the focus was on the bass and the herons' head was not sharp in the original file, I didn't want to "push" it. But I agree with everything you said and I'll try to sharpen it without overdoing it... Sharpening an image is the part I struggle most with in post-processing. I always fear that it would look oversharpened and I end up not sharpening it enough! I also noticed that the image looks rather dark & needs some more contrast... It's funny how I did not notice all these things before posting it here... So glad I did! Thanks again for your help!!! ~Laura

[Bonnie Block]

Wonderful, Laura. Terrific catch--you and the bird!
Really like Dave's rendition.