Weathervane

[LeeFortier]

GBH in it's "weather vane" position.
ISO 800, 1/400, f10, D200, Nikon 70-200mm + Nikon 1.7TC, 4/12/11 11:26am

[Chris Ober]

You've got the detail, pose and you handled the exposure well. Wish the background wasn't as busy and the leg wasn't cut off.

[Geoff Warnock]

Hi Lee, like the pose, but there are quite a lot of artefacts around the outline of the heron - did you blur the background and do some masking? If so, I'd revisit your file, and maybe leave some of the lower right foreground in focus to 'anchor' the image a little.

[Joe Brown]

Excellent detail in the bird.
The biggest problem for me is the tight cope with the loss of the lower half of the leg.
I also see the processing issued mentioned by Geoff.

[LeeFortier]

Original file, levels, usm.

Wasn't happy with the busy BG.

GBH in it's "weather vane" position.
ISO 800, 1/400, f10, D200, Nikon 70-200mm + Nikon 1.7TC, 4/12/11 11:26am

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Lee, I like your humorous title and the sharpness and color rendition. Thanks for posting the original, it really shows what you did with the image. It seems odd that there are some halos around the legs and foot even in the original. Do you shoot in JPEG? These birds often hang out in habitat like this, so it is a challenge to get them out in the open or with a less busy background.

[LeeFortier]

I shoot combo JPEG and RAW. Then I normally use the RAW image. (But not always).

[wendell westfall]

Lee, nice sharp image of the bird . . . I agree with Geoff re. an "anchor" in the lower right corner.

[Geoff Warnock]

Hi Lee, great that you posted the original. Your sharpness/colour work for the processed image was spot on, and I think you could still try to blur some of the busy background. I agree that some birds very rarely want to give you a clean shot!