Heron Silhouettes

[Phil Ertel]

This image was captured at 6.44PM on April 09, 2009 while at the Venice Rookery in Florida.

I was hoping to get a silhouette of the female heron and had already taken several images. Just as I was about ready to quit the male flew in with a branch.

The RAW file was converted in ACR and imported then into CS3. I cropped a little off the both sides. In CS3, I adjusted with levels, and ran noise reduction using the Topaz DeNoiser plugin. Increased the red sky a little with Hue/Saturation. I did remove a couple of small branches. I resized/sharpened and posted.

Thanks for reviewing and special thanks for any comments/critiques.

Regards,

Phil


Image Specifications:
Camera: Canon 50D
Setting:
Manual Mode
f-Stop: 5.6
Shutter speed: 1/1250
ISO: 800
Lens: 500mm IS USM f4.0 plus 1.4x
Tripod: Gitzo GT3540LS with Mongoose 3.5; 4th generation
Flash: not used

[DanWalters]

Very striking silhouette. Love the color of the sky.

[Richard Lovison]

A very striking photograph and the one bird carrying nest building materials is an added bonus as the image tells a story. Love the colors.

You may want to consider using some or a bit more noise reduction... on my monitor noise is showing up in the background and around the feathers of the neck. You probably could be more aggressive than normal as you wouldn't have to worry about squashing detail in an image of this nature.

[Phil Ertel]

Hi Richard, Thanks for the critique. I'll go back and give it a try on my master file. More than one set of eyes truely is better. Thanks again.

[Juan Aragonés]

A very pleasant result Phil. The pinkish BG is really nice and the couple of herons working in nest building is perfect. :-)

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Very lovely capture that tells a touching story. thanks for sharing Phil.

[Stu Bowie]

Silhouette's against a colourful BG always works for me. A bit of interaction to say " where shall I put it dear?" adds to the image too. Well captured Phil.

[Brian Wong]

Hi Phil!

A great story and lovely background colors. Since it is a silhouette, I would try making them totally black, and then also the noise reduction should be easier ... or even just trying to use a background blur.