Learned Skills

Image Critiques Everything Else Critiques
1

The Great Blue Heron has found an ideal spot for outgoing tide prey. The entire background of the photo is a main trunk tide gate leading to and from the Savannah River. In the image, the tide is outgoing. The GBH is perfectly spotted to see everything that comes through the tide gate on the way to the river. It never took its eyes from the flow.

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What technical feedback would you like if any?

To get the entire bird with the 300mm + 1.4x TC was not possible. I could not back off far enough to get its whole body without being blocked off by the sidewalls of the gate. Is this a flaw at all?

What artistic feedback would you like if any?

I found it impossible to take this picture and make sense of it without a back story. The picture doesn’t explain itself without a narrative. Does this lessen or help the artistic story? A “beak lunge” might have helped, but the GBH never moved while I watched.

Any pertinent technical details:

Camera Info: Nikon D500, HH, braced on signpost
Lens: VR 300mm f/4E + 1.4x TC
Focal Length: 420mm
Focus Mode: AF-C
AF-Area Mode: Dynamic, 25 points
VR: ON
Aperture: f/7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/8s (I got better than I expected)
Exposure Mode: Aperture Priority
Exposure Comp.: +1.0EV
Metering: Matrix
ISO Sensitivity: ISO 1600
80% of full frame
PP in LR/PS CC 2019, Topaz Studio and DeNoise, Camera Raw filter, TK Sharpen for web @ 60%

You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
2

Pretty decent detail for 1/8th, Phil. The only other option I had initially considered would be to have taken off the 1.4x, but I doubt that would make much difference. While a lower angle might be preferred, I kind of like the higher POV, because it shows that head plumage that reminds me of the “ducktail” hairdo from the Fifties - yep, I remember those:laughing: Curious that I’ve never noticed that on my local ones.

3

Hi Phil. Thanks for posting in the Human and Fauna Forum. I think this image works with the back story. The only way I could think of improving on how well it works would require a whole different image and I don’t know if you could have positioned yourself. Ideally, I think a wider lens and more depth of field might let you include the tidal flow through the gate which might have made the image almost self explanatory.

Given what you had to work with this works quite well, though you might be able to bring the background up just a bit to make it plainer without competing unduly with the heron.

The heron’s stare is superb and the wide pupil conveys the relative dimness of the light in its chosen hunting ground.