Egret in Flight- Keeper?

[Bob Miller]

Taken at Bombay Hook De...wish I had more DOF on this one

Nikon D-300
1/1250 at f5.6
ISO1250
200-400 mm at 330mm
All comments welcome and appreciated!

[Lance Peters]

Hi Bob - seems to be a cloning artifact of the wing above the wing??
A interesting pose but not seeing the fine detail I would expect to.

[Troy Lim]

Bob,

Looks like the focus point is on the feet...it looks blurry on the bird overall.
Not working for me.

[Julie Brown]

Hi Bob,

Is this the only flight shot you have of an egret? If so, keep it until you get a better one. Keeping it will give you a frame of reference for what to look for next time. If not, I would delete it. I think this bird has such an elegant head and neck, but you cannot see them here, nor any feather detail. Sorry.:(

[Andreas Lentfer]

Hi Bob,
not a keeper for me because the feather look strange. Nice moment though!
Regards
Andreas.

[Arthur Morris]

Please post the full frame original. It looks as if you may have gone Photoshop crazy :)

[Bob Miller]

Art...here is my original image....You're right I probably did go too far with this one. :o Suggestions?

[Arthur Morris]

Ben, Sorry to be so tardy:) Not to be a pain, but this is not 3 X 2 so it cannot be the full frame ORIG :)

IAC, the main problem is that--assuming that you were using the central sensor--the sensor was nowhere near the bird's head when you made the image, thus the sharpest focus is on the feet.... EXP does not look bad a tall, and I like the BKGR but not the big sticks on the mud.

[Dan Brown]

I agree with the comments made, but I might keep the image and see what I could do with it using some illustration actions and illustration plugins such as Topaz Clean. The original post looks kind of illustrated already. Go to http://www.photographybb.com/actions/ Dave Seerams site and scroll down to the free illustration action, install and run it on the original post and see what you get. To vary the effect, try the action on larger versions of the file also, as the effect will be less on bigger files. Of course the results will be OOTB!!::p

[Arthur Morris]

After a second looks it seems that in Pane 1 you did a good job of sharpening the face and the eye...