After seeing so many different beautiful shots here on BPN I wanted to try something a bit different with a background. I like the backgrounds in some shots when they are not even remotely close to being in focus...just a blur. This brings me to a dilemma! I was shooting this Tri Color when it would grab a minnow and land by me to eat. It was almost 6:00 pm and I loved the different colors that both the bird and background had...very cool to me. I wanted to take the shot at f4 so the background would be a complete blur but in shooting, if the heron was even slightly facing me the outer half of the beak would be out of focus (the part closest to me). I decided to work on a total profile shot and got some. I love the way the heron is looking at the minnow in the end of it's beak. There's no eye contact with me but there are more pressing things for him to think about at the moment...like concentrating on not dropping the minnow.
So...would the shot be better with the point of the beak out of focus but facing me more? The way it is but with eye contact? Or something completely different and I've lost my mind thinking the shot was ok?
Again sorry but not being a Photoshop guy like most here are, I did not do anything with the background like NR and I actually see a couple of lines below the throat where the orange meets the lavender coloring. Not really sure why they are there. As always help is much appreciated!
1D Mark III
400mm f4.0 DO
ISO 640
1/2000th
f4
-1/3
Thanks for the comments on this one. I wasn't sure if the bird was situated ok. I actually kind of like the blue in the background because I think it's adds something different than the warmth. Not sure if it was reflection from the water. I tried cloning it out but failed miserably. It's easier for me to clone out a dust spot or mosquito flying by lol. Thanks again!
Matt, SWEET LIGHT here! Very nice! I like the sharpness, exp and BG!. I am not sure what the lines are caused by but I was able to partially remove them in the repost by selecting the areas (above and below the head) using a quick mask with a brush about 140 pixels in diameter, zero hardness, inverting the selection and using a gaussian blur filter set a 28 on the slider. I had to repeat the process again on the lower lines. It seems to have improved the situation greatly when I view the image in PS but when I upload here, the lines seem to appear again but not as strongly:confused:. Nice shot!
Heron at sunset
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