Great Blue Heron; copyright reserved, Richard Lovison, 2006-2009
Hello,
This is my first post to birdphotographers.net after hearing about this site from another member, Ed Vatza. I'm looking for some constructive criticism, so have fun!
The image above was taken after I stumbled upon a heron rookery while on a hike in western Massachusetts. The nest was located about 30 feet high into a dead tree surrounded by water and about 40-50 feet from the shoreline where I was located.
I used an Olympus E-1 with a Takahashi FC-60 refractor coupled directly to the camera using an Olympus adapter. The 35mm effective focal length was 1000mm and of course I had no choice but to shoot wide open. The camera and scope were mounted on a tripod and I used the cable release in sequential mode. This was one of four images of the sequential shoot.
The image was taken in RAW mode at 1/1600, f8 and ISO 800.
During RAW conversion using Olympus Studio 2 I left the contrast at -1 as there was a great deal of contrast in the harsh afternoon light (a lot of wind also). In CS2 I used Noise Ninja at half the default settings to reduce a bit of the noise in the image and used curves to open up the shadows in the wing area.
A very fun picture. A really like the striding pose, wing spread and crest.
As you pointed out, the light is quite harsh, which makes it a challenge to tame the exposure. There is moderate noise under the wings from the s/h treatment.
I might suggest that you crop in from the left, as I don't think that large nest mass adds much. The central trunk is the dominant part of the image, other than the bird. I would also be tempted to clone out the top snag that almost touches the wing. Perhaps come up from the bottom to just above that horizontal branch in the nest that is about 1/2" up from the bottom on the right.
Thanks for sharing, and keep them coming.
Randy
Last edited by Randy Stout; 03-11-2009 at 11:55 AM.
Reason: clarify cropping suggestion
The noise in the image was a problem. ISO 800 on the E-1 was always a struggle, not so much with the E-3. If I used more aggressive noise reduction, too much detail would be lost in my opinion. I wish I would have experimented with ISO 400 and 1/800th of a second for shutter speed. The 1/800th of a sec might have been enough.
I did what you suggested in the image below using an 8x10 aspect ratio starting in the upper right hand corner and stretching downwards. The elimination of the upper snag was great suggestion also. Thanks again for your input.
To me, this is better, more focus on the bird, less on the nest. You could even push it further and clone out the other snag by the birds foot, but its really a matter of taste. I have a simple mind, so like simple images, so I don't get too easily distracted.
Welcome to BPN Richard! Nice first subject you present us, and you got him in a very dynamic pose - quite entertaining actually. Good suggestions by Randy, and your repost shows that they are indeed improvements. Not much to do about the harsh light, except to head out early or late to take advantage of the "sweeter" light.
Great Blue Heron
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