Green Heron

[Gayle Clement]

I was surprised to see several green herons in relatively open areas during a late afternoon visit to a local swamp. These birds usually hide from me.


Nikon D2Xs
Nikkor 500mm f/4
Nikkor 1.4 TC-EII
1/50s f/5.6 at 700.0mm iso250
Exposure + 1/3

[Gus Cobos]

Very nice image gayle,
Love the composition, very nice mellow colors in the background, and love the detail on your bird.

Congrats...:D

[Robert O'Toole]

Sweet image Gayle. Love the Bg and the great plumage colors. Like to diagional comp also.

I think your image needs a little help to give the image more punch and richer colors. I used curves and masking to help. What do you think?

Robert

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the details, BG and composition. I'm not familiar with the light you had but it looks a bit flat on my monitor. Maybe a slight boost in contrast.

[Robert Smith]

SWEET! Great to find a cooperative green heron in the open! Congrats on the capture. Well done on separating the bird from everything, and I like the diagonal perch. I like what Robert O'Toole did with it. I'd probably crop it just a tad tighter to get rid of the partial clump of Spanish moss - I think I'd either like the whole clump, matching clumps on either side as a kind of frame, or no moss?

[Maxis Gamez]

Second pose really make this work! Excellent works Robert.

The details and excellent and so is the composition.

[Gayle Clement]

Thanks to everyone for their responses. I initially did a linear curve but was afraid that the photo was too contrasty. I always deeply appreciate the feedback.

[Andreas Kanon]

Very nice, I love the background which makes the bird stand out nicely. The repost is even better but a bit to saturated for my taste.

[Robert O'Toole]

Hi Gayle, You can alwys run an S-Curve on the mid tones only, selectively. I actually darkened the image in curves first than ran a light S-curve with a mask.

You didnt say if you like it? :)

Robert

[Gayle Clement]

I always like and appreciate your advice, Robert :-) Actually I like the extra punch but with just a little less saturation.

[Linda Robbins]

Nice diagonal perch and pose. I like Robert's repost with more contrast, but would back down a bit on the saturation. Nice to get this shy bird out in the open. If this were mine, I would crop out the Spanish Moss in the upper left.

[Glenn Bartley]

Really nice image. I agree with Linda re. processing.

[Gayle Clement]

Thanks again to everyone. I reprocessed this using Capture NX, using Robert's suggestion of a curve and Linda's of getting rid of the moss. It was hard to get rid of that moss, Linda.:)

[Gyorgy Szimuly]

Very nice image and nits mentioned. I maybe would have gone for a vertical version.
The piece of vegetation (maybe moss) in the top left corner a bit bothers me. Looks not so native in this habitat this bird species is living - but I could be wrong.
Szimi