Theme: Extreme Close-up - Guess The Bird

[Brendan Dozier]

Thought this created an interesting abstract design while emphasizing the fine details of the eye area and surrounding feathers. Taken back in Feb, at animal park bird sanctuary.
ACR, PP, Crop, Lightened with levels adjustment, used curves to bring out more detail in feathers, desaturated white feathers to remove yellow color cast, Topaz for sharpening detail and NR.

See if you guess the ID on this one...

7D, EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM +2.0x
Hand-held
1/640
10.0
ISO 400

C & C welcome & appreciated,

- Brendan

[Allen Hirsch]

Black-crowned night heron. Do I win a prize?

Nice image, Brendan - great detail in the feathers and the scales on the bill.

[Brendan Dozier]

Wow, nice job Allen! Your prize is my congratulations!
I guess it's a bit too easy for all these birders on BPN!

[David Stephens]

Great result, with great colors and super detail. Do I see your reflection in it's eye?

I always find these detail studies interesting when detailed like this.

[Dave Leroy]

A really nice job on the eye and other processing.

Good idea on desat'n the white feathers.

Well done.

Dave

[Dumay de Boulle]

Really great exp and textures...Thats what you call an extreme close up! Red eye is spectacular on the Black Crowned Night Heron

[Doug Brown]

Love the tight crop. The detail seems inexplicably lost in a number of places; like some extra heavy NR was run. Otherwise very nice.

[James Salywoda]

Such a common bird to ID but you do have some excellent close up detail.

[Paul Guris]

Sweet! I love the balance of colors, though I might increase the amount of black shown by just a little to balance against the amount of white. The treeline in the eye reflection is a great touch.

[Brendan Dozier]

Thanks all for your comments, much appreciated.

Doug, you're right on the NR, still learning to use these processing tools properly and with the right touch. Hopefully, my photography will improve over time so I won't have to rely on it as much.

Paul, thanks for suggestion regarding boosting the black a bit. Did a bit in selective color, but will experiment some more with it.

[RakeshDhareshwar]

Awesome image and crop here . Would like to see an image w/o the NR .