Black-headed Heron

[Dave Barnes]

Black-headed heron in breeding plumage coming in to roost.
Camera Model Canon EOS-1D Mark III
Lens EF500mm f/4L IS USM +1.4x
Tv (Shutter Speed) 1/4000
Av (Aperture Value) 6.3
Metering Mode Partial Metering
ISO Speed 400

[Brian Barcelos]

This one is very impressive Dave. Love the colors on this bird and the eye looks amazing, nicely sharpened and the blue BG complements the bird. I'd only like a little room in front of the bird.Congrats.

Brian

[Ramon M. Casares]

I love eveything about this image, ight, exppsure, colors, species, detail and sharpness. Although the rear wing could be in a better position it work very well for me, what I would like is a different crop, as the squera format doesn't really works for me here. Great DOF too.
Congratulations!

[Mark Dumbleton]

Love the pose of the bird! Good light and wing spread. Feel the square crop doesnt work for me, but sometimes its hard to get anything to work other than a square crop. Well done Dave!

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Other than (IMHO) needing at least double the space on the left, this is a killer image. Love that red eye! :)

[Stu Bowie]

Brillint IQ Dave, and love the landing posture with the open beak. This is really sharp, good feather detail, and another vote for trying to get away from a square crop. NTS.

[Simon Bennett]

Fabulous pose, exposure control and sharpness.

[Ryan Lambert]

Super pose captured here Dave, good light and detail under the wing. Nit re crop already mentioned.

[Dave Barnes]

Revised comp for those who prefer more sky.

[Christopher C.M. Cooke]

dave the only thing I would do is clone out the brown smudge on the bottom right hand corner, other wise superb especially with the new crop.

[Kiran Poonacha]

The repost loved better, great timing and details.. congrats..

[Jeni Williams]

The repost does it for me Dave. I like the detail. open beak and light. Would agree re the bottom right cnr.

[Chris Kotze]

Excellent pose,angle,feather detail and sharpness. Super repost Dave the comp looks great.

[Dave Barnes]

Revised again for those that only want a blue BG.:D:D

PS. I prefer the square crop but it often happens that I dont follow the crowd and if you dont like my principals I will find others.;):cool:
I see it is starting to loose a bit of IQ now due to editing reduced JPEG file.

[Christopher C.M. Cooke]

Great Dave, can you post it large enough for my desktop? :)

[Randy Stout]

Dave:

Lovely bird, well captured. I do prefer a bit more room in front than in OP, but its very nice.

The only thing that struck me is that the whites appear a bit grey on my monitor.

I opened the image in NX2 and reset the white point on the brightest white, and that had the effect of making the whites a bit more white, without blowing them out.

Just an option to try, I liked the effect, but you will have to be the final judge since you know the bird.

Congrats on a very nice image.

Randy

[Erich Stevens]

Dave,

I really like your repost #2. Great detail in the whites and super sharp.

[Dave Barnes]

Thanks Randy for your comments on the whites.
I normally set my white point at 245,245,245 on the tiff file prior to size reduction and sharpening.
This allows a touch of leeway for sharpening without clipping.
I have taken a few single px colour samples and see that in the area of sharpening, the whites are 255,255,255.
If you zoom in and look at the colour where the wing meets the body (the lightest area)you will see that there is a definite grade of colour from white to light grey. Yes the underwing is in general a light grey.
I am no expert but I think the colour is correct.
Could others please comment.

PS could be a slight red cast?

[Randy Stout]

Dave:

Thanks for the information. The brightest white I could fine was 247 at the base of the alulars. That is where I set the white point at. You know the bird, and I don't so obviously I trust your judgement as to what they really look like! I did use NX2 to check, and there can be some subtle differences in luminosity readings between the programs.

I didn't notice a red cast on my monitor.

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

killer pose/eye contact,great details and beautiful wing position!

[Arthur Morris]

I love the original near-SQ crop by far, perhaps with a smidge off the bottom. As for the brown smudge, was there any work done on that in the original post. The pose, the SH, the hanging feet, and the open bill all combine to make this a winner. I have some question about the color temperature. Be right back....

[Morkel Erasmus]

super pose and exposure Dave. colours look natural to me and that facial expression is priceless.

[Arthur Morris]

Forget about the white #s. I have seen this bird in life and from moment that I saw the thumbnail something struck me as way off. As it turns out, all of the posts above have a huge blue cast. I removed that using the Average Blur Color Balance trick that is available only in Digital Basics. I balanced the color and applied the Linear Curve and followed that by gettig rid of the smudge in the lrc. (I still want to know how that looked in the ORIG capture.

IAC, the image looks far more natural, the whites whiter, and the blacks blacker. :)

[Arthur Morris]

super pose and exposure Dave. colours look natural to me and that facial expression is priceless.

Sorry Mork. The colors in the original post are not natural :) See the color-corrected repost above :) :( :)

[Randy Stout]

Artie:

Very interesting thread because of the great bird, and the info about color balancing. Inspired by your rework, I went back and looked at the ORIGINAL POST file again. As a quick fix, I reset the "neutral color point" in NX2, placed it on the leading wing greys, and reset the white point, at the base of the alulars, and to my eye, it give a similar effect to yours. Thanks for pointing out the color balance issue. Nothing like knowing what the bird is supposed to look like!

Cheers

Randy

[Arthur Morris]

Hey Randy, YAW. Your version looks a bit spiffier than mine. Well done. The funny thing about this one is that in the ORIG post the RGB values for the whites looked pretty good and did not indicate a blue cast. But there was indeed a blue cast. I think that I would have nailed it eventually even if I had never seen the bird in life....

[Dave Barnes]

Thanks for the trouble taken Arthur. I appreciate it, the colour of the bird does look more natural now, but the sky looks odd to me. I will have to check my monitor.
It also seems to have lost a bit of IQ.
Arthur the green was a tree in the far BG, no alteration done to it.

[Morkel Erasmus]

yeah I saw Artie. my bad. yours looks more natural. I think that where I live I always see them in smoggy light so anything as clear as Dave's looks better to me than my own shots of this bloke - but mine eyes hath deceived me :)

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for the trouble taken Arthur. I appreciate it, the colour of the bird does look more natural now, but the sky looks odd to me. I will have to check my monitor. It also seems to have lost a bit of IQ. Arthur the green was a tree in the far BG, no alteration done to it.

Hey Dave. YAW. I love those grey skies but am not sure what type of sky that you had. It might be possible to blue up the sky only. Image Quality loss is expected each time that a JPEG is re-saved.

Thanks for the info on the smudge. As that it how it looked in the original, I would eliminate it if that fits with your personal ethics. I had thought that you might have over-Gaussian blurred it.

Please keep the great images coming!

[Dave Barnes]

Yes Arthur I agree it looks better without the smudge.

[David Fletcher]

Wow! On two counts. Congrats on this image. Sharpness, pose and details quite exceptional. Also wow! for the dialogue on color balance.... with the benefit of hindsight from the bottom of the page, :), the blue cast is quite evident, which wasn't that obvious until the comparisons were made. Be interested in more info on that and will have a peek at ER to see if covered there.

[Sinh Nhut Nguyen]

Really got the light in this image. I just love the detail. I love his head angle, opened mouth and the "mohawk". For me I'd clone out the oof vegetation in the lrc.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Your repost on pane #14 is my favorite.

Great looking bird. Thanks for sharing.

[Daniel Belasco]

I read every comment. what more can I say--excellent image in all forms. I like the original post.