Great Blue Portrait

[Sid Garige]

Canon 7D 500mm F4+1.4x
ISO 800 F6.3 1/640

[Mike Milicia]

Very dramatic portrait! Nicely done!

[Duane Noblick]

Love the feathers and the intense look on the Herons face...very well done.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I was happy to see the two plumes at top on the full size image as I was thinking there was too much room above from the thumb:p. In other words...good comp! I'd see if I could lighten those two plumes at the tips just a bit to make them balance more with the bottom half of the imge. I love the explosion of breast feathers, very cool - albeit showing signs of borderline oversharpening on my monitor. Well done overall, I like it alot.

[Randy Stout]

Sid:


Very good comments from the folks above. Love the feather display, agree however that the plumes below are showing jaggies and appear slightly over sharpened.

In a perfect world, I wish his head was up just a bit for slightly better eye contact, but looks very intense as is.

Cheers

Ranbdy

[Sid Garige]

Thanks guys. Here is a repost I worked on with little more light on background, reduced contrast and sharpness.

[Randy Stout]

Sid:

I prefer the repost. The reduced contrast helped the head plumes show up better, and the reduced sharpening helps eliminate the jaggies.

Cheers

Randy

[Daniel Cadieux]

I agree the repost looks much nicer. Although I like the darker BG of the original, I also prefer the new greener one. Way to go!

[Brendan Dozier]

Very powerful image, awesome great blue, and the greener BG works - good call

[Pieter de Waal]

Hi Sid, good composition adds to this dramatic image. I prefer the repost. I allways have trouble sharpening grey feathers but the repost has handled them well. Well captured.

[philperry]

Smashing photo Sid. I just love those neck feathers set off against the dark backdrop. Actually I prefer the original post - more dramatic.

[Don Lacy]

Wonderful patriot Sid the puffed out breeding feathers really pop against both BG

[Indranil Sircar]

Excellent one, Sid. Love the repost with reduced contrast. I like the how the breast feathers balanced with the two plumes on the head.