Another of my friend - BG could be cleaned up a little.
D3S
Nikon 300mm f2.8 with 1.7X Converter
F4.8
1/640TH
1600 ISO
Manual exposure
Matrix Metering
Handhed
Comments welcome as always.
Awww Shucks
Another of my friend - BG could be cleaned up a little.
D3S
Nikon 300mm f2.8 with 1.7X Converter
F4.8
1/640TH
1600 ISO
Manual exposure
Matrix Metering
Handhed
Comments welcome as always.
Will wait to see what are the comments on this one ... do like the IQ on the bird !!!
Hi Lance,
He finally took his head out of the water :). My first question is what kind of bird is this...something native to your part of the world? I really like the pose and the eye contact ....he has a very intense and aggressive stare...normal for this species?
The BG is a distraction...actually its the shoreline between the water and the greenery IMO which you can't help from that angle. Not sure if anything can be done with that. The light reflection on the water seems a little bright. After focusing on the bird for a while...the BG kind of fades out for me and the bird looks even better...nice capture of the bird.
" In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks" - John Muir
I like the BG and might only eliminate the hot rock toward the right and darken the light background behind the bird. This shows its environment nicely, without taking away from the sharply detailed bird.
Hi Ken - Comments appreciated :)Originally Posted by Ken Lassman
White faced heron - pretty common in Australia - not unlike a Egret in many ways! Quite unusual to get this close to one.
Besides posting on BPN - I use these for my Australian Photographic Society portfolio - so straight competition rules apply - Natural History based image -Nothing added or removed - basic PP - Crops frowned upon.
Pretty much the standard rules for any nature based competition.
So like anything here - depends on what you want to use the image for - If I were to print this to hang - Id clean up the BG blur it a little, maybe darken it just a tad - BUT still even then I would not get as much personal satisfaction from it as I would from one that I have not had to do anything to!
that's just solid work, lance. did you brighten the eye and at all? i noticed in all of this series it looks really nice!
Sharpened just a tad - allowed to sharpen and NR and anything you could do in a darkroom!
Great capture my friend. Sharp and well exposed.
Congrats
Hi Lance, very well exposed,nice lighting along with good detail throughout. Neat wing position with an intense stare. To me the backround isn't a major issue just the whitish area behind the bird. The only area thats a bit of a distraction is the water...
Frown on crops, but you did here Lance. Curious as to the OP. Do they allow flash?
Crops are frowned upon but wont get you a automatic rejection UNLESS its a large crop then chances are it will get pretty much a automatic rejection - for these I wouldn't crop to under 80% of original.
Flash is allowed - competitions have some pretty weird rulings - for instance cropping may get you a rejection - Yet if I am shooting full frame and turn the DX function on IN CAMERA resulting in a 1.5 crop factor - thats perfectly acceptable.
If I crop after the fact by 1.5 - Thats not acceptable.
I like the setting in this image. I usually see these birds on the reef, so it's nice to see one in a creek/dam setting. I like the strectching pose, HA and eye contact, but the vibrant green in the bg is just a bit too distracting.
Interesting that the birds down there are more skittish than up here. The local WFH's are very tame in comparison allowing your to slowly approach to within 10m, sometimes even 5m on the odd occassion. But then again the local Lewin's HE's are skittish but if you head up the coast an hour or so you can practically touch them! :(
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