Incoming

[Chris_Calohan]

This is a Little Blue Heron coming in for a landing. The little Blue is born completely white and as time goes on, turns completely blue, so the slight blue coloration you see on him is natural and shouldn’t be messed with much. The Little Blue is about the size of a Snowy Egret.

Specific Feedback Requested

Here’s my dilemma: Swampy areas are filled with lots of green-yellows, thus making getting BG’s to stand back from your primary subject, difficult. I did one small lights 1 mask on the LBH to tone down the brighter whites but have done nothing (other than some selective cloning on debris on the water’s surface) to the BG.

I have done the BG several ways: Left as you see it, mid-range darker, and very dark. The latter two really push the LBH forward, but it seems to me, unnaturally. Anyone wanting to take a shot at this, be my guest. This is a bit of a compressed DoF and a fairly substantial crop on a full frame sensor.

Technical Details

Is this a composite: No
D810, 200-500 @400mm, f5.6, 1/1250, ISO 640

[David_Bostock]

Terrific landing shot, Chris. Perfect focus. I don’t mind the background as it is, personally. The bird keeps my eye on it and not the background.

[Paul_Breitkreuz]

A truly excellent stop action take here, Chris. The detail is very nice in the heron and the BG is no distraction for me at all…

[peter (Peter J. Morrissey)]

Hi Chris
I agree with David and Paul on this photograph, The landing, framing and white & blue are well controlled. Nice work.
Peter
Ps
I did take a shot at reducing the green and lifting the black in the background, with DXO’s HLS hue control and 4 local control point adjustments.

[Chris_Calohan]

I tried that but as you can see on the LBH, it over saturated the blues. It also takes him too far out of his environs…it’s the age-old issue of shooting in the swamp.

[Dennis_Plank]

Nice shot and a very interesting intermediate plumage, Chris. I like the landing pose.