I’ve been too busy to keep up here for several months – think I may be back now. Looked out the deck door today and saw this guy hunting below the house. I think it lives at a nearby pond. I sneaked out and steadied the camera on the railing and waited, and he came closer, finally to within 20-25 ft.
Type of Critique Requested
- Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
- Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
Clear mid-day with the sun angle at 10:00 from where I was aiming, but he gave enough head turn to get a little light on his face. No chance for a more interesting BG and he soon wandered off. If I had moved he would have taken off.
Technical Details
Full frame top to bottom – I cut off the tip of the beak and did a pano stitch from another frame to add canvas on the left. Minor tonal tweaks in LR and in PS, Topaz Denoise and softening of a couple of BG features with low-opacity cloning.
2 Likes
beautiful head shot, Diane. The sharp details and amazing and great color. The background came out very well, I wondered if darkening it just a bit will increase contrast but maybe not. Your timing is perfect because I am trying a RF 100-500 this week and wondered how the 2x Extender does with it. From the reviews I have read it does not seem to impact the lens as much as I would think it would.
I can’t see any degradation at all – comparable to the 2X III on the 600 f/4 II, which is amazing. The tiniest bit of sharpening in raw conversion will compensate – and I didn’t do that here. My 100-500 lives with the 2X on it – that’s why I was able to grab it and grab the shots of the heron. Great for birds in flight too.
Contrast was low here as the head had barely a brush of light and the BG was bright. And at 1/400 sec and 1000mm I was on thin ice, even with the back of my hand resting on the deck railing. (I may have permanent damage…)
1 Like
Welcome back, Diane. What a great profile of the Heron. I love these guys. I think the background is fine. I’d rather see this than something busier as it highlights the bird better. My only wish would be that the plume wasn’t cut at the edge. But that’s minor. Great image.
Diane, I know what you mean by busy, it seems my days just get away from me. I have a GB image that I took in November and still haven’t posted it. Hopefully soon. I do love your head shot of this one. I too wish the plume wasn’t cut off, but as @David_Bostock said, that’s minor. Wow, to have these guys come up in your backyard! You are really blessed. I probably won’t get anything else done though if they came here like that! 
Welcome back, Diane. You were missed! Such a nice portrait of these amazing birds. Their heads are so narrow and long like their necks that sometimes their heads blend in with that long neck and you don’t really see the beauty of it. This gives a "birds eye view 
) of their long beak and beautiful eyes. I think the BG fits very well here. Just wonderful!
