Great Blue Heron Eating Its Breakfast

[Arnold Dubin]

I took photo of this Great Blue Heron Eating its fish breakfast at the Viera Wetlands using my new Nikon D300. This was the 2nd time I took photos with it. Before I was using a Nikon D200. The main reason I purchased it was because it had much less noise at higher ISO's I used my Nikon 500mm F-4 manual lens to take this photo.

Camera Setting;
ISO -500
f-stop - f-7.1
Speed - 1/1600 sec.

I used PhotoShop CS3 to enhance this photo.

I would really appreciate you critiques on this Photo, Thanks ADubin

[Doug Brown]

Hi Arnold. You've captured peak action here. Good to see you enjoying your new purchase. I think the bird could stand some additional sharpening. And I would try to bring out more detail in the darks of the fish. There appears to be some cloning artifact just in front of the bird at the bottom of the frame. Thanks for posting!

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

agree for the cloning artifacts,beautiful action

[Axel Hildebrandt]

The heron looks pretty happy about his catch. Congrats on the new toy, sharpness looks good and the fish adds to it. The blues look a bit oversaturated and I would tone down the whites.

[Daniel Cadieux]

The action you witnessed and photograph is pretty cool, and the expression on the fish is priceless. Did you do something to the BG?? I ask this because most of the outline of the bird and fish is kinda fuzzy like if they were masked prior to manipulating the BG...

[arash_hazeghi]

Nice capture of heron at breakfast time! I agree with Dan, BG seems a bit unnatural to me also wish for a lower angle.

[Arnold Dubin]

Doug,

Thanks for your critique. I did re-post this photo based on your inputs. On the BG I did use the healing brush to remove much of the junk from the water. I also burred the BG using a mask since there was some noise in the BG. I did minimum amount of cloning to the BG. ADubin

Hi Arnold. You've captured peak action here. Good to see you enjoying your new purchase. I think the bird could stand some additional sharpening. And I would try to bring out more detail in the darks of the fish. There appears to be some cloning artifact just in front of the bird at the bottom of the frame. Thanks for posting!

[Arnold Dubin]

Manos, Thanks for your feedback, ADubin

agree for the cloning artifacts,beautiful action

[Arnold Dubin]

Axel, Thanks for your inputs. I did try to tone the whites but I guess I need to some more. I have reduced the saturation on this photo but haven't re-posted it yet. I'm waiting for other feedback before I re-post it. Adubin

The heron looks pretty happy about his catch. Congrats on the new toy, sharpness looks good and the fish adds to it. The blues look a bit oversaturated and I would tone down the whites.

[Arnold Dubin]

Daniel, Yes, did mask the bird and the fish and did blur the BG. ADubin

The action you witnessed and photograph is pretty cool, and the expression on the fish is priceless. Did you do something to the BG?? I ask this because most of the outline of the bird and fish is kinda fuzzy like if they were masked prior to manipulating the BG...

[Arnold Dubin]

Arash, Thanks for your comments. Arnold

Nice capture of heron at breakfast time! I agree with Dan, BG seems a bit unnatural to me also wish for a lower angle.