Bird on a rock in a Lake

Hi all,

I was riding by this lake and spotted this (crane?)
Pulled out my camera & took a couple of quick ones before it flew off.





Model - NIKON D5100
Lens - Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED IF AF-S VR
ExposureTime - 1/250 seconds
FNumber - 11
ExposureProgram - Aperture priority
ISOSpeedRatings - 200
ExifVersion - 0230
ShutterSpeedValue - 1/250 seconds
ApertureValue - F 11.00
ExposureBiasValue - 0.00
MaxApertureValue - F 5.66
MeteringMode - Multi-segment
LightSource - Cloudy weather
Flash - Not fired
FocalLength - 300.00 mm

Hand Held

Thanks

Nice shot, with the background nicely out of focus, and the bird is a Heron

Nice shot. I like the composition with the heron on the left looking to the right.

Yup, its real nice to see space in a photo in the direction where the bird is looking. Some bird photos i see are cropped too viciously, and the bird ends up looking cramped.

The water seems a bit blown though, so i had a play with it, and there's plenty of detail in there to bring back.

Thank you all

was wondering if anyone would give a critical review of the pic & ideas on improving the image (and my skills) & maybe, my score card considering this is the critique section?

The photo is a good one mostly, detail is good on the subject, but there's too much background to make your subject the prominent, so a little cropping was in order.

The only other thing is the blown water i mentioned. Which was recovered with shadows and light and touch of Gamma in Levels.

This is a nice capture. The subject is sharp and crisp . . . nice center of attention. Your technique is also good in terms of depth of field. The composition is somewhat distracting because of the shoreline in smack in the middle of the photo and tends to bisect it. The birds's head is also in the middle, albeit in the left side. The "rule of thirds" is not something that needs to be followed all the time, especially if other elements can carry it. Even though it is s nice capture, there's very little impact to the photo . . . it doesn't inspire me to take a second look. If, for example, the heron were eating or catching a frog, it would have more impact, or ruffling his feathers, even.

I would suggest the following:
First of all, crop the photo to address the composition issues above . . .crop from the top and from the right . . .
Secondly, I would do a little more post processing with the colors and sharpening.

As an overall score: 8/12 ( -1 impact, -1 composition, -1 creativity, -1 technique )

IMHO and I hope this helps! Keep up the good work!

Score card exactly the same as Helene

Thank you Pete & Helen..
The points you pointed out were exactly what i thought was flawed with the photo.
I also think i should have been able to get the shoreline lower & tried for a blurrier background which would make the heron more prominent.

@Pete - the changes you made definitely make the photo look much better.
Would appreciate if you give me a little more detail on what you did (here or PM as i am just learning post processing)

@Helen - i never thought of waiting for the bird to do something like holding a fish or ruffling its feathers.. and that would really have been so awesome
thanks for the tip, am sure never to forget it

@Helen

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My name is Helene, not "helen" (please include the "e" on the end.)

ohkphoto said:

My name is Helene, not "helen" (please include the "e" on the end.)

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Oops! Sorry Helene.
Won't forget that either

Oops! Sorry Helene.
Won't forget that either

Click to expand...

LOL Thanks, letmedanz . . . you're a good sport

The background will get you every time!

I know what your subject is though and that is good.

letmedanz said:

Thank you Pete & Helen..

@Pete - the changes you made definitely make the photo look much better.
Would appreciate if you give me a little more detail on what you did (here or PM as i am just learning post processing)

Click to expand...

I dont know what software you use, ( adobe CS5 extended for me ) but basically, I lassoed the water and applied some tweaks of Shadows and Light, to see how far i could bring the highlights down, and this sometimes makes the area look grey and flat, so added a touch of Gamma, which you find under the levels option. I also used a bit of Burn tool to even up the unbalanced light and dark water sections

I could have gone a bit further and made a better job of it, by i only spend that much time on my own files