Great Blue Heron

[Richard Lovison]

© reserved 2009, Richard Lovison

I know, I know. :) The lighting was harsh, too far away from subject (the image is a crop, one third the size of full frame), a little soft, little detail in the feathers and the closest wing's detail is lost in shadow. I thought I'd submit the image anyway, just to share the experience.

I revisited a heron rookery after a one year absence. This time there were only two nests as one was destroyed in the last ice storm. When I arrived, two herons quickly flew off... one out of sight and the other flew to the far side of the pond and perched in a tall tree. I waited patiently for 2 hours for the one to return to the nest that was only 100 feet or so from me but no such luck. Just as I was going to pack up, the one left the tree and I quickly shot off 5 frames in succession. This was the best of the three.

Camera Info:
Olympus E-3; Takahashi FC-60 refractor telescope with rack and pinion focusing (1000mm 35mm focal length); 1/1000 sec @ f8; manual exposure; manual focusing; tripod; cable release

RAW Conversion:
Olympus Studio 2 software; 6100K, -1 tint (Takahashi is color shifted toward blue); contrast 0; saturation 0; sharpening -2; aRGB color space

CS2 Info:
Cropped about 1/3rd of full frame; Curves adjustment; color balance adjustment; Nik pre and output sharpening; converted to sRGB

[Fabs Forns]

Hi Richard, I don't mind the size of the Heron because the tree and the cloud make up for it. I mind the shadow across the body, though, maybe you can get some more detail ouf of it with a Shadow/Highlight adjustment.
Keep them coming!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the takeoff pose, inclusion of the vegetation and the cloud adds to it. I agree that the underside of the near wing is a bit dark and might crop some off the bottom.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

I don't mind the image. THe pose is good, the underwing detail less so, but I feel the excitement myself. Good hint from Axel re: crop the bottom more. I would also try and sharpen the bird more! :)

[Richard Lovison]

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions and critique. Fabs... the Shadow/Highlight adjustment did help and since I used ISO 400, there wasn't mush noise when I brought up the shadows.