Little Bittern (Ixobrychus Minutus)

[Marion Ehrlich]

It's the nesting season of little bitterns here in a small delta near Barcelona (Spain) and I was so lucky
to take some photographs of this splendid male...

OLYMPUS E520, ZUIKO 70-300 (Hide, Reissack)
300.0mm
0.001s (1/1000)
F/8.0
ISO 400
-0.30
(JPEG,sf)

[Randy Stout]

Marion:

Great job in this environment getting a clear shot of him. Sharp

The light was pretty contrasty, but you exposed him well. The dark shadows, esp. on the neck, is the only sig. issue for me. I don't know if you have done any shadow work on it, but certainly worth a try. It will not be easy, because of all the shadows in the reeds, which will tend to brighten with the neck, but I would play with it a bit. The other option would be careful use of the clone stamp to eliminate the shadow on the neck.
For me, I might tone down the blue in the background just a bit.

Thanks for sharing.

Randy

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Marion and welcome, Nice image. Nicely framed. Light a bit harsh. A quick job on the shadow with a series of Quick Masks. (See in Digital Basics and APTATS.) Plus some bill clean-up and a bit of Eye Doctor work. This bird looks like a combination of our Black-crowned Might-Heron and our Least Bittern. Also reduced the contrast a bit.

[Marion Ehrlich]

Thanks Randy and Arthur for your comments!

Arthur:
You did a really great job eliminating that shadow. The image looks much nicer without the shadow.
Thank YOU,

greetings,
Marion

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Marion, Glad that you liked. The shadow job was a bit lummpy.... If I had been working on the TIFF I would have worked smaller. It would have looked better but taken a lot longer.