Great Blue Heron portrait

[Duane Noblick]

Decided to play around with the camera settings with this cooperative GBH. Shot wide open as it fished next to me.




I know the end of the beak is oof but I was concentrating on the eye. I also lightened the eye.

Make	Canon
Model	Canon EOS 50D
Flash Used	No
Focal Length	500 mm
Exposure Time	1/400 sec
Aperture	f/4
ISO Equivalent	160
Exposure Bias	-1
White Balance
Metering Mode	partial
JPEG Quality
Exposure Program	aperture priority

[Mike Fuhr]

I like his look of concentration. Maybe try a vertical crop to remove some of the dead space?

[Dan Busby]

That's a great eye and good detail showing the texture of the beak. The BG seems a bit "heavy" to me - maybe a little lightening might allow that rear head feather to show better. The tip of the beak goes oof - I think the image would be better if it could be sharp to the end, either with a slight head turn or an aperture 5.6 setting.

[Danny J Brown]

Hi Duane - Interesting choice to go wide-open here. You get a sliver across the eye and everything else heads toward the bokeh. Makes for a kind of unique, artsy shot. A higher DOF would have been good here as well but would have been more "typical." I hate to say it because I hate to hear it but the white on the head appears a bit warm to me. Thanks!

[Duane Noblick]

Thanks everyone. I was trying for something different here and I have plenty of "typical" profile images of this Heron. I agree about the whites on top of the head being toasted.

Vertical crop....quick job, some cloning mistakes (cloned our part of the shoulder) and some noise in the bg but I agree about the different crop.