The eye/lores and top of head, nice, sharp, like the subtle colors in the feathers. Well exposed.
The OOF mandible however does detract for me. You can sometimes help this by focusing a bit forward of the eyes, so that your DOF is spread differently, but even that wouldn't give you enough DOF in this situation.
The shooting angle from above also isn't quite as intimate as if you could have gotten a bit lower (not always possible of course.
Some aspects of this image are excellent, David - pose, comp, exposure, and background. I like the sharpness and detail around the head, but the OOF beak and neck detract from the image, IMO. I think the image would be a lot stronger if either the beak or neck were sharp (along with the head, of course). :)
Very cool, IMHO. A very different and original take on our Louisiana Heron friends with the focus right where it is needed. I like the artistic feel of this one. I like it a lot!
Last edited by David Gancarz; 03-08-2010 at 06:21 PM.
Agree with Randy, although I'm not very picky about DOF, this one, having the OOF bill so prominent in frame, detracts from the image.
Being so close to the bird, you'd need f/48449494 to get the whole thing in focus in that plane.
David, although the techs look great, in my opinion this is not the best looking individual to have a close up portrait printed of. The neck plumage is a bit ratty, and the bill is quite worn, Had this guy been in fresh breeding plumage with a spotless bill then that could have been good.
Now, as an individual image it does have a quirky feel to it (in a good way) with the disheveled hair-do:). The focus is perfectly on the eye and the shallow DOF is fine with me because of that - although I'm not convinced it would hold up as nicely printed.
Can you share your calculation on the f/stop needed for adequate DOF here? When I ran the numbers, I only got f/4844949. I must have dropped a decimal point somewhere.:D
tri-color
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