Shot with Hendri Venter today, and captured this 'SQUACCO HERON' (sorry for the wrong ID, someone corrected me) this morning at a birding spot about 80kms from my home (today is a public holiday in South Africa).
This is my first decent shot of this normally VERY shy and reclusive character - and also the first where I'm not just seeing its eye through a bunch of reeds.
Techs:
Canon 40D (loaned, thanks Hendri) with 100-400mm L IS USM @ 310mm
f5.6 @ 1/500 SS @ ISO-400
Exp +0.3
This is full frame - no cropping applied! Also applied a burn layer to the highlights and reverse S-curve and local contrast enhancement to pull detail from the shadowed body. Increased blacks to make the white bird pop a bit more. Other than that - just sharpening upon resize.
Decided to use a frame - something I used to do a lot but not that much nowadays - felt it suited the colours in this shot.
Also - let me be the first to say I wish the head was turned slightly more towards me. In fact, I have a few where the bird made better eye contact, but without the sweet rim lighting and ruffling of the feathers.
Now, except for the HA police, let me have it... :)
Last edited by Morkel Erasmus; 09-24-2009 at 01:06 PM.
Morkel, I like the inclusion of the environment-but it's a bit busy. I might remove the one green grass intersecting his face. The ruffled feathers and backliting look nice. It's a tight crop esp. top and bottom.
Looks like you had a productive morning at Marievale mate. Lovely backlighting effect, especially through the crest. The surrounding dont distract, but the blade of grass just below the beak does. Congrats on your first of this guy.
I like the back lighting highlighting the ruffled plumage and especially like the texture of the crest and breast plumage pattern mirrored by the burnt winter grass. Agree on dealing with the pale green strand. I was at Marievale exactly a year ago and was impressed with the Squaccos http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...&pictureid=265
Saw a little Bittern but not well enough for a photo.
this is great bro! I love the backlighting and have no issues with business of BG. That's where this bird lives and you portrayed it too well. Congrats! flying fluff a nice touch!
here is a repost with the green grass under beak cloned out as well as the black sticks in the BG.
with this BG cloning was no easy task. I used smudging and selective blurring to discard evidence :)