Great Blue Heron "Morning Glow"

[James Salywoda]

Great Blue Heron
Southern, California

Taken a few months ago as the pickle weed here at the wetlands can cast a remarkable glow and color to backgrounds and the colors complimented the rust colors on the GBH. Morning shooting here on the coast in
May and June is a rarity due to a heavy marine layer which usually doesn't clear out until the afternoon.:(

Nikon D300 AFS600 1.4 TC

F5.6 1/1000 ISO 800

Thanks For Looking
Jim

[Doug Brown]

Gorgeous light! Nice underwing detail and good eye contact. I'll be out your way in the next couple of weeks; would like to try to get together!

[Randy Stout]

James:

Very nice light as noted. Good pose, HA and BG.

To my eye the head/eye isn't as sharp as the wing root/underwing area. Its close enough that a bit more selective USM might do it.

Thanks for sharing.

Randy

[Stu Bowie]

Great flying posture, showing good detail from the underwing. Now this is sweet light, and love the warm colour in this. Great capture James.

[Ramon M. Casares]

Amazing light, lovely pose, great BG, nice detail, collors and comp. I would only suggest a bit more sharpenning. Big congratulations! Just wonderull image!

[James Salywoda]

Added a touch more sharpening to head
Thanks for the comments and advice as always:)

[Randy Stout]

James;

Better re: sharpening. On my monitor, the eye itself is still a bit soft. Will be curious what others say.

Nice image!

Randy

[Randy Stout]

James:

I just wanted to add, that I run my NEC 2690 at a low contrast setting to help with subtle colors and detail, so the sharpness would appear to be greater on monitors with higher contrast settings. It is these variations from different equipment that often creates different opinions!

Randy

[Danny Laredo]

Wonderful flight image and sweet light.

[Dave Phillips]

it's a golden beauty Jim....and I see exactly what Randy is referring to.
It can take a bit more sharpening about the head and outside of eye.
Also reducing the size of the catchlight helps a bit too. I tried this,
but didn't want to add yet another repost.

super image sir....sweet golden glow

[Nagesh Mula]

Its a wonderful shot James, beautiful light and the BKGR is good too. I liked the reposted version. Congratulations!!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the light, angle and BG. The repost looks better on my monitor. I might sharpen the bird a little bit more if it doesn't cause artifacts or noise.

[Arthur Morris]

Lovely light and repost. I'd go for a crop from the bottom for a pano. Dave, reposts are glady accepted especially when everyone will be learning. Go for it!