Yellow crowned night heron

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Canon 50d, 300 f2.8
1/1600, f 6.3, iso 400

Cropped from horizontal. Removed little bit of bill shine.

Comments and critiques appreciated.

Thanks,
Sidharth

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Hi
Why not run a little NR on the BG. Nice colors and for some reason while the eye seems to have lots of detail, the plumage appears a little flat. Maybe some more sharpening may clear it up. Well done, the portrait looks very appealing! :)

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Thanks for the feedback Akos. Will rework this in the evening and see if I can get any detail out there. I know the raw image is very sharp, so it must be an issue with my workflow.

[Stu Bowie]

Sid, good comp, and I like these type of portraits. Good detail in the head and eye, and look forward to your repost.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Siddharth, very nice. Head angle is perfect which is the most important thing in such shots. I've never seen them with pupils so small :-) Must be real bright light.

I see what Akos is saying about the grey feathers. I think a little more room at top will make it better.

[Bhushan Dalvi]

Siddharth , I like the HA in this one. The BG looks great. I would agree with Akos about the plumage.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Thanks a ton for the feedback, guys.
I think this has made me realize two mistakes I made with this image
1) I had exposed to the right and didn't pull it back nearly enough. I think the over exposure in the presented image causes the flat look.
2) I reopened and saved the jpeg file twice which, from what I read on one of the threads in ER today is not a good idea as it leads to loss in detail.

Kaustubh, yes, it was very bright. This image was made at about 3:35 pm on a sunny day and I had to bribe my rather reluctant wife to stand at different strategic locations so as to cast a shadow over the bird.

In this repost, I pulled back the exposure -0.83 ev, removed a bit of bill shine again and applied a round of sharpening. The grey look much better to me now and I hope I haven't made the blacks too dark. I also added a bit to the top as recommended by Kaustubh.

I suspect that I might have made it a bit too dark but I'm not sure.
Please let me know if the repost works. Thanks again.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Siddharth, your self critique is good. I'd say you pulled it back 1/3 stop extra.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Thanks again, Kaustubh. I will fix this.
I appreciate all the input.