Tricolor Heron

[Daniel Belasco]

canon 20d 500mm f4 IS @f4 1/1600 iso 800 0EV

[James Shadle]

Daniel,
The water color and reflection are beautiful!
I can tell right away the horizon needs to be straightened
Was this a large crop? I would like to know that before I comment further.
James

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Agreed re: horizon!
Awesome colors, but there is a bit of noise. As James said without knowing more about details of the final image, it is difficult to assess fairly. :)

[Ramon M. Casares]

The main focus is clearly on the back of the bird and not in the headm alway try to focus on the head. Light, colores and ambient are magical, but the IQ is less than ideal IMO.

[Mark Dumbleton]

Agree on the rotation of the image, and yes the focus was on the back of the bird. Would be interested to hear if this is a large crop. Stunning colours tho!

[Sinh Nhut Nguyen]

Great light, I see a lot of noise, was it because of heavily cropped?

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the pose and colors and wish the bird were not angled away from you. Another vote for CW rotation and noise reduction.

[Doug Brown]

You've found yourself some gorgeous water! Now you've just got to wait for the bird to give you some good eye contact. Agree about the focus point being on the rear of the bird and also about image rotation.

[Daniel Belasco]

Thanks everyone for you helpful comments.
This was taken 3 1/2 years ago. My second time out with my new 500mm F4 IS lens. When I saw the Tricolor in the pond with this beautiful light he was slightly walking away for me and I hurried to catch him in the light. I got off 67 shots in this light. Maybe some of the others are better. I didn't know what I was doing then, so I'll have to check some other shots. The last 45 shots he was standing still and I got side shots. I was barely fitting him in the frame as I got real close.
I think I might have rotated the image to get the bird horizontally straight.
Anyway I've attach the orginal jpeg without any contrast, sharpness, cropping etc.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Thanks for the story, as for composition I might try something like this, I also applied 1.8 degrees CW rotation.

[Arthur Morris]

Focus is on the back and the image is quite noisy, in part from the crop and in part from the original underexposure. Have your skills improved over time?

[Daniel Belasco]

I don't know Mr. Morris?

[Arthur Morris]

I think that you do know Daniel. The image above is vastly superior to the original post. I loke the SH and the HA in the repost. You needed to point your lens a bit to the right after focusing to move the bird closer to the left frame-edge.