Found this little guy fishing in duckweed at Viera Wetlands this week. It amazed me that he could find the fish there, but he did manage to catch a few.
Nikon D300
200-400mm f/4 @ 550mm
ISO 800
f/5.6
1/800
Love the weed on the legs and bill. It keeps the bird from looking too sterile. The whole setting is unique.
The head and bill look a little soft to me. Maybe they can be sharpened a bit? I also think the color needs to be brought up. The weed doesn't look green enough and I would expect the colors on this species to be a bit deeper and more robust.
I like the nice composition and activity of the heron.
Good idea about a bit more selective sharpening. Also I am not sure about the colour of the weed but some more contrast and saturation for the bird might be in order.
Nice repost Maureen. I like the addition of more color but it feels a little small in the frame of the weed. I'd take a bit off the left side so the tip of his beak hits the ROT's position. I tried an 8x10 crop and pulled in left, right and top and it seemed to help. See what you think...
Hi Maureen. I've been amazed as well how the greenies sense the presence of prey under the duck weed mat, and they are often successful in my experience. I think they see small disturbances at the surface.
In any case, I usually try to decrease the green saturation in ACR, since the duckweed seems to give a greenish cast to everything. If I go too far, I end up with the grayish, slightly green I see in this image.
Anyway, your image sharpness and detail is quite good, and in low contrast light (as you had) I would have exposed the image like you did; a bit overexposed. This has big advantages, including minimizing noise at high ISOs, but needs to be "corrected" in post-processing. Drop the exposure, increase contrast, and increase saturation.
So thats what I did with your image. Cropped a bit, but I'll leave any advice about composition to Julie.
Green Heron
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