The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
I was at a riparian area at sunrise and spotted this.
Specific Feedback
Does anything in the processing ring false? I didn’t make major changes to the bird or the water but the background had a number of distractions. I had to use a number of adjustment layers to reduce the distractions.
There are light bands on the side of the egret. They’re reflections off the water. Are they distracting?
Any other comments would be welcome.
Technical Details
ISO 640, 400mm, f/8, 1/2500th. I didn’t need that fast a shutter speed for this one but I had the camera set for birds in flight. There wasn’t time to adjust the settings.
Critique Template
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the image is interesting, and I think that the contrast between the white and ethereal heron and the background is quite nice. The picture, however, feels a bit overworked, at least to my taste.. Personally I find the bands on the heron body rather distracting. The large-size image has a lot of noise, which is strange for the relatively low ISO you used and could have been a result of the processing?
The background looks fine to me, Don. I do see the noise @Antonello_Provenzale is referring to as well as the bright banding from the sun reflecting off the ripples. I don’t know if you use luminosity masks, but if you have Tony’s plugin, it would be pretty easy to set up a mask to let you adjust the bird while protecting the brightest whites from blowing out.
Hi Don, nice behavioral catch of this feeding egret. The light on the bird seems fine to me with the banding from the ripples a natural occurrence. I see the noise in the background as well. I’m wondering if it’s mainly from the large file size of the original. Either way, it should be easy to clean up if desired. The bird/reflection is centered in the frame. I could see more room on the left along with a crop from the bottom.
