Caught this Heron in hiding hunting fish a couple days ago.
Nikon D300s
Sigma 80-400 OS
Shot at 5.6 ISO 800 and 1/1600 Second
Manual Mode
The Hunt
Caught this Heron in hiding hunting fish a couple days ago.
Nikon D300s
Sigma 80-400 OS
Shot at 5.6 ISO 800 and 1/1600 Second
Manual Mode
Hi Cory,
Love the capture, think you may have over PP'd the eye tho, looks like its popping out of its socket!
might be tempted to take a little off the bottom
Peter
Cory:
A most uncommon foreground for a GBH, very nice. Soft light, just enough detail in background to place the bird in its environment.
Peter's comment about cropping is interesting. Normally I prefer to have room for the 'virtual legs', meaning that even if you can't see them, you leave room in the frame for them. In this image, I do think a very modest crop up from the bottom would work well.
Cheers
Randy
Last edited by Randy Stout; 05-06-2010 at 07:35 AM.
Hi Cory, agree with Randy that the foreground is unusual (and I like it). I find the pastel colors in the neck to be attractive, and the flowers are also a plus. IMO the strip of BG behind the beak is too bright. I would also change the name of the posting, as the bird does not give me the sense that it is "hunting" in this image. Overall, very nice!
lovely environmental image
Agree on all points !! Regarding the eye is good to work on it but do be careful when darkening the pupil, use a soft brush and lower the opacity to apply the effect incrementally !!
Crop wise I understand about the virtual feet but do like it as presented Really nice !!!
A very unique image! I love the stand of pickerel weed the heron is in. That is what really makes the shot work. Well done!
Boy I really love the environmental aspect to this one.
This composition works for me with out any cropping.Nice soft colours on heron.
I am not sure about the eye. Sometimes they can be pretty bright and perhaps it is the dark line around the eye that is setting it off a bit.
Wish it was mine.:)
Thank you all for the comments, very much appreciated.
I like the elements within this shot and especially those purple flowers opposing the yellow eye of the heron. The comp would have been better without so much bright water area in the upper half of the shot but that might have been something there was no control over. Some water-light area I feel in front of his head would look great, but all the way across as is chops up the image in a very stop motion sort of way. And eye movement is what you want so anything that bounces one's attention around would be helpful to the power of the shot. AKA: diagonals and opposition of spots. You could maybe slightly selectively darken the bottom area also so as to lower it's visual attraction and channel the eye's focus more upon the bird and flowers.
The other thing I noticed right off is that the heron looks rather washed out in tone and color. Don't know if it's just the way it was, but it does seem to my own memory that the grays are deeper than what we see here.
The concept here works great I feel Cory and if I had the available opportunity for repeat shooting me thinks I would be out there working the scene a lot. Wonderful possibilities and this shot demonstrates that.
Paul
Thanks again for the feedback, I have posted this in other forums and have gotten a much different response. Everyone I have talked to and showed this too all raved over how much they liked it. I posted it here and everyone seems to think it is washed out and too bright. So I got to thinking the image does looks different here then it does on my computer or the other forum I posted it at. The colors don't look as good and the bg does look a little too bright. I don't know why but I am not going to change this image in anyway but I honestly do appreciate the feedback from all of you. Have a good day.
Cory:
There can be some subtle differences on different forums re; how the image appears.
The other thing to consider is, that this site has by the far the most thought full critiques of any I have seen. It is not a backslapping 'great shot' place. We look carefully at images to see how any image can be improved.
Even the best pros images, and we have many members that fit into that category, sometimes can be tweaked or improved.
You get to be the final judge of course, it is your image, but always aim high!
Cheers
Randy
Cory:
I had a minute and did a quick tweak of your image. The bones of your original are great, but it did seem a bit washed out.
I have gone a bit overboard here, but subtle changes often don't translate well on the web.
Just an option
Cheers
Randy
OK, what exactly did you do to it? That is pretty much how it looks on my computer and the other forum I post to. Thanks for the example.Originally Posted by Randy Stout
Cory;
I did a selection on the bird and parts of the background (water areas} and changed the blend mode to multiply.
I lowered the curve in curves, filled that layer with black, used a large brush, 20% opacity, to paint in the foreground and some areas of the background to reduce their luminosity.
Cheers
Randy
Beautiful re-post!
Gave this one a go myself so here's what I came up with. I had a bit of trouble working the jpg to get the effects I wanted but I'm thinking working the full tiff would be less of a problem. My idea was to control the tones in a subtle way so as to get the eye moving around. Like I said I still don't think the heron looks right, but maybe this conveys my thought process somewhat.
Paul
Last edited by paul leverington; 05-07-2010 at 08:38 AM.
Thank you all again for the comments and example images, much appreciated.
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