My 1000th post!

[gail bisson]

I think I "talk" too much!!1000 posts in 4 months. Good thing the kids are grown up and gone and hubby loves to fly-fish!
Canon 7D
f 4 500mm
ISO 500
f 7.1
SS 1/1600
Taken last week at Big Glace Bay Harbor at roughly 8:00AM
I took about 20% off the bottom because of a clump of ugly grass in the middle of the water but I wonder if I should leave the water in and clone out the ugly grass clump?
LR3 and CS5. I had to do a small area of linear burn on the beak.
Appreciate your thoughts and advice,
Gail

[Stu Bowie]

Congrats on your 1st milestone Gail, and may you continue to grow as you have shown us. Great angled flight posture, with good DOF. Overall sharp, and comp wise, I would take a little more off the bottom, and add to the top - as the heron is heading that way.

[Randy Stout]

Gail:

Congrats on the 1000th! Quite speedy of you.

Excellent dorsal view of wings with lots of detail, very well exposed there. Like the trailing feet.

I agree with Stuart about a little more room above, since he is obviously climbing. I do like the blue 'anchor' provided by the water, so would see how it balances with a bit more on top.

Did you do any post processing work on the BG?

Cheers and congrats. You are a fast learner. Must be that doctor thing.

Cheers

Randy

[gail bisson]

Hi Randy,
I did noise reduction on the BG. Do you see something? I will add more canvas to the top
and repost.
Gail

[arash_hazeghi]

first of all congrats on the milestone. your images have been improving for sure! this one is a great shot, I love the sweet light and display of wingspan. However I would have preferred if the GBH was banking parallel to the camera as opposed to flying away from us. The head whites appear to have been blown or maybe it's a result of too much sharpening...perhaps you can recover that area.

Congrats again

[Doug Brown]

Congrats on your 1,000th post Gail! Love the full wingspread and great detail. Good advice above regarding exposure and composition.

[gail bisson]

Hi Arash,
I agree about the head. I had to do a linear burn on the beak as i blew some whites. Here is a repost with more canvas on the top and I will see if I can fix the head a bit more. My next frame in this series has the bird parallel to the sensor( he banked towards me) but I clipped the wingtips and I do not know how to fix that... YET!! I know the basics but have to work on those skills!
Thanks to you all for helping me so much over the last 4 months.
Gail

[Melissa Groo]

Congratulations Gail! You are a terrific inspiration and so helpful to others with your eye. Great dorsal view and wonderful light. Good job adding that canvas, something I need to learn!

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Gail, congrats for 1K and all your contributions. Its always great to get new dedicated contributors like yourself.

love this shot...we dont get to see dorsal view of these large birds very often...infact I dont recollect seeing one in a while. Very well done.

[dankearl]

Nice job here Gail, herons are actually kind of tough subjects to me.
Common, but they can look odd at times and beautiful other times.
The repost is better.
As far as your 1000th, congrats and keep it up.

[Arthur Morris]

Face and head in Pane 7 still too bright. The time to try to fix such problems is during the RAW conversion (not afterwards).... Is this the same bird as....? Mazel tov on 1K. The first thousand is the easiest :).

[Daniel Cadieux]

Gail, congrats on 1000! I love how you joined the forum and jumped right in with both feet...your participation has been much appreciated...and your progress noticeable

Good comments and advice already so I've not much to add...just keep it up!

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Excellent repost, Gail and congrats on the milestone. Thanks for your excellent contributions and for sharing your beautiful images.

[Emily Norman]

Congrats on 1000 Gail! Nice capture of this heron, the ones around here are SO skittish, I swear if I even think about aiming my camera towards them they fly away! Agree re: the head being a bit bright, but this is a small detail in an otherwise great photo.

[Dumay de Boulle]

Congrats on the milestone Gail...Thanks for all your valuable input and enjoying your work...RE this image, I dont think its up to your usual standard on IQ, also the BG is a tad noisy and in the wings the noise is also quite noticeable. Going away from you is not ideal...But I like the top side view

[Grace Scalzo]

You reached 1K in record time, congrats. I admire your dedication to learning and improving. In that spirit, I'll say that I'm with Dumay on this particular image, as much as I like some of the elements, I cannot get into the fact that he's flying away. Also that heavy black shadowed area dominates. Not to worry, I'm sure you'll have more chances if you know where this bird hangs out.

[gail bisson]

Thanks everyone for your very helpful comments. Will do better next time! I have a tendency to get attached to images that take me a lot of time or work to get. Will have to learn to be less emotional about the image. I am thinking that I shouldn't even look at my pictures until a couple of weeks have passed. I believe I would be more objective when looking at the good and bad of a picture and be more willing to let at image go into the garbage can!!
Gail

[Bill Dix]

Gail, I'm slow in responding, but congrats on the milestone. Good critique above by Arash, and repost a big improvement. Looking forward to the next 1000 and more.

[Dan Brown]

Congrats, Gail!

[Grace Scalzo]

One thing that I've learned and had to assimilate into my editing process is that how hard I work to create a particular image really has nothing to do with the end result. Some of my images that have been embarrassingly easy to get have turned out to be some of my best and on the other hand some that I've worked like a dog to get just stink. When I say "embarrassingly easy" that doesn't account for the hours that are spent learning and honing the craft. And yes, letting some time pass....weeks, and maybe even years....will change your mind about an image. Again, works both ways. Look at Artie's recent blog to see what I'm talking about.