Green Heron at sunrise

Gallery: AvianPosted August 6, 201880 views4 comments

This shot was aken from a short distance away through the limbs of a small oak tree next to the bank of a lake facing generally towards the rising sun. I like it because of the clarity of the subject, the colors, and the bokeh. I used a Canon 5d IV with a 100-400mm @ 400, 1/2000 (set for flight), f 5.6, and iso 3200 (auto).
I enjoy my time with Green Herons since they seem much more tame and curious about me than most birds and this time was no exception. I added a very slight vignette and adjusted several "tone" sliders in LR, added some clarity, and painted the heron with lightened tones, clarity, and dehaze.
Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

Comments

4 comments

Comment posted by Philip Hodgkins on August 6, 2018 at 8:37 PM

Good detailo and nice color. Not enough room at the bottom; in fact the toes are very lightly clipped. Some canvas could be added there with a little very light surgery on the toes.

Registered on July 24, 2006, 2741 Posts, 12349 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on August 6, 2018 at 9:08 PM

Great pose and very good detail in the heron, Anthony. Did you get a frame without the toenails clipped? It's easy to do unfortunately-I have a ton of images with the tips of the feet cut off from concentrating on the head. I love the out-of-focus foreground leaves, but I'm not that crazy about the dock in the background as it's roughly the same darkness as the heron and pulls my eye away from it a bit.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Jim DeWitt on August 7, 2018 at 6:57 PM

Good shot and good post-processing work. Two nits: as others have noted, cutting of the toes is a negative; I also find the background pretty distracting.

Registered on August 28, 2006, 1240 Posts, 8506 Comments

Comment posted by Anthony Pollard on August 10, 2018 at 6:18 PM

Thank you all for your thoughtful comments- I feel very foolish to have missed the obvious problem and as one of you suggested I was probably paying too much attention to other aspects of the picture to notice it. That's why this feedback is so helpful. AND the other problem was that I could not find the picture I submitted to NPN but I tried to work up a similar pose and address the concerns noted. I agree the dock doesn't help the comp because of the similar color and that the leaves are somewhat distracting. At one point I tried lightening the heron and vignetting to focus attention more but I didn't find those changes helpful. Again thank you all for your comments! I recognize you all as masters of the craft and I appreciate your time and thought....

Registered on April 20, 2015, 20 Posts, 37 Comments