Black-Crowned Night Heron

[DanWalters]

Captured some more herons the other day at City Park in Denver. Really fun trying to capture some different flight shots. Thanks for looking.

Canon Id Mark2
Sigma 500mm f/4.5 lens
f/7.1 1/1000 sec
ISO 200
RAW file

[Randy Stout]

Dan:

Your heron is sharp and well exposed, nice eye contact.

If you haven't already tried it, might use shadow recovery to bring up a bit more detail underwings. At that ISO, should be some recoverable detail in there.

re: crop. For me, I would crop in a bit from right, and add same amount to left, and bit to bottom. Just personal taste.

Thanks for sharing.
Randy

[DanWalters]

Thanks for the suggestion. I actually used a little of the shadow recovery, just did not want to go to far. Thanks for the crop suggestion.

[Randy Stout]

Dan:

I thought you might have used some, and you don't want it to look unnatural. I often go over the limit and then try backing down. I am on my laptop out in the boonies, and although it is calibrated, it tends to display just a bit dark, so perhaps others will be fine with your lightening.

Cropping is really personal preference, but I always look at the birds flight path or direction of interest to help decide where my eye wants to go. In this case, it looks to me like he is angling to the left side of frame, so thats where my brain wants more space.

Randy

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the head-on and look-down pose in this one. Good discussion above, I agree with Randy regarding the crop. The whites could go a bit darker for my taste.

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

beautiful pose/eye contact!

[Morkel Erasmus]

I also find that my laptop displays a bit darker. lovely angle and pose this, I would also add some to the left. those 2 red eyes staring straight at you makes it for me.