Yellow Crown Stare Down

[Gary Whiting]

Hi Folks, well here goes my first post to BPN...This Yellow Crowned Night Heron was sleeping on a limb at the St Augustine Alligator Farm. I practiced on a few shots while he slept and waited until he looked around...when he did, he glared right at me!

Canon 50D/EF300mm 2.8 IS USM. Taken at ISO 200 f2.8 1/250. RAW. Aperture Priority, Spot Metered, No exposure comp used. White balance set to "Cloudy" to keep it a little warmer. No flash. Camera on a monopod. Shot this just after 9AM in a shady spot, but the sun was barely above the trees by this point.

I use Aperture, cropped the original to create the "head shot" about 50%. I only brush-sharpened around his eye..I tried to burn a little darker on his cheek and beak where the white is a little strong. Might need a little more there. The BG is problematic, I tinkered with cloning out the blue sky over his head, but left it as-shot for this critique.

Feedback welcome, let it fly!


Every Day is a Gift...

[Julie Kenward]

Gary, welcome to BPN! We're glad to have you posting.

Nice detail on the heron and lovely detail in the eye, especially. From a composition standpoint you're a tiny bit off here. If you have more room above the bird's head I'd recrop this so the eye is lower in the frame and possibly more to the left side, putting it in the ROT's position (see below).

The angle that you took the image at is a little steeper than we'd normally want to see but you did a very nice job of getting the head and body in focus while retaining a nice OOF background (BG). I think you're off to a good start!

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Gary, EXP and SH look good. The BKGR is problematic for sure.... The big problem with the original capture is that the bird's head is rotated away from you giving the somewhat false impression that the bird was high above your position....

Yes to a bit more room above (and in front of the bird as well).

Julie did a nice job on smoothing the BKGR (thank you ma'am) but unfortunately whatever edge refinement she used let the smoothing carry over onto the bird..... NG on that. Protect and defend cloning (as outlined in Digital Basics will prevent that).

[Julie Kenward]

Yeah, that's what I get for being in a hurry! Mostly just wanted to give you an idea of what else you could do with the image. :o

[Gary Whiting]

Gary, welcome to BPN! We're glad to have you posting.

Nice detail on the heron and lovely detail in the eye, especially. From a composition standpoint you're a tiny bit off here. If you have more room above the bird's head I'd recrop this so the eye is lower in the frame and possibly more to the left side, putting it in the ROT's position (see below).

The angle that you took the image at is a little steeper than we'd normally want to see but you did a very nice job of getting the head and body in focus while retaining a nice OOF background (BG). I think you're off to a good start!

Thanks much for the feedback...I do have room to adjust the crop, now I see my ROT was off on the horizontal....I'll tinker with the background as well, I like what you started. Funny, I had just finished reading the thread on head angles...I knew this one was off - he was about 10 feet above me, so the angle wasn't ideal.

Thanks again for sharing!