Little Blue Heron - down the barrel
This LBH was fishing along a small tidal creek at Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica. I was able to approach quite close without disturbing it. But every now and again it would just stop and stare at me for a few seconds and then return to fishing. Very minor edits - curves, sharpening and a few small stones removed.
Canon 7D, 500mm f/4L, ISO:400, f/5.6@1/200, EC: +0.3, AP, AI Servo AF, evaluative metering
All C&C welcome!
Dan
This is a fine capture of little blue. The eyes look a bit faceted rather than round, maybe oversharpened ? The dof is right on, I would only prefer a lower angle on this shot.
Herb
www.herbhoughton.com
Hi Dan, Nice colors on the Little Blue and I love the stare down but as Herb pointed out the head does look over sharpen to me.
Don Lacy
You don't take a photograph, you make it - Ansel Adams
There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs - Ansel Adams
http://www.witnessnature.net/
https://500px.com/lacy
Herb and Don - thanks for the comments. You are absolutely right - the head appears over-sharpened. In my morning slumber I had not noticed this. As it turns out, even the small amount of sharpening I did on the entire bird took the head details too far. So I went back into Photoshop and masked out the light part of the face, including the eyes, before applying general sharpening. I have never before had to remove the eyes and face from any sharpening action - this is usually where it IS required. Here is the result - I think an improvement.
Dan
Much Better on the beak but i think I would add just a touch of sharpening on the eyes a small amount with a radius around 1.5
Don Lacy
You don't take a photograph, you make it - Ansel Adams
There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs - Ansel Adams
http://www.witnessnature.net/
https://500px.com/lacy
Well done on what looks like pretty tough exposure conditions.
I like the vertical composition. If mine I might try and move bird a bit to right side of photo.
Repost is better although I think a bit of sharpening on head/eyes would still work just not as much as opening.
Dave
Thanks for the mini workshop! This was a tricky one so I thought I should give it another go. I did a bit of selective sharpening on the eyes and face. I found that it was real easy to over-do the sharpening so it was very gentle. Here is the result.
Dave - I would normally agree with your suggestion of composition more to the right. However I deliberately tried to play up the theme of "down the barrel" by centering the subject. Maybe it didn't work
Thanks all.
Dan
danbusby.ca
Dan, I really like the last repost. Head and eye sharpening looks very natural in this one, and I love the frontal stare and colors. Nice re-work!
Sweet!!! Excellent detail Dan I also like the pose very nicely captured.
Great low angle and comp. IMG is sharp and well exposed
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