Great Blue Heron with Bluegill ( First Post )

[Filomena Larson]

Caught this Heron In The Act.

Just found out about this site and what amazing talented photographers on this forum. I hope to learn from your comments and critiques that are always welcome and appreciated. I'm pretty much a novice that started nature photography last year along with my husband.

Fil

[Don Anderson]

Fil, The heron needs to be knocked down a little, its too bright. I love the
catch and the pose. Could use a little sharpening. Really great timing on this
shot. Only a year.. way to go! :D :D :D

[Randy Stout]

Fil:

I big welcome to BPN. There are some very nice folks here who will help you grow as a nature photographer.

Dramatic moment captured. The dripping blood is amazing.

the angle of the bird in frame is good. More room below for the virtual feet is always good.

The birds head needs some more work with sharpening.

The post processing work on the fish has left it looking a bit artificial, almost as if it was pasted into the picture. There is a streak of light running through the fish down to the water.

The overall exposure looks pretty close, maybe just a bit hot on the whites of the head.

You might want to post the original image, so we can see what you started with, and perhaps help in your post processing. I am not a whiz at it, but there are many here who are!

Thanks for posting. You have come to a great learning place.

Randy

[Filomena Larson]

Thanks Randy for the helpful comments. I didn't do much to the original as you can see because I'm pretty new to PhotoShop as well. Please feel free to play around with it.

[Tony Whitehead]

Welcome, Filomena. Great first post. Pose and prey with dripping blood is really impressive. The main issue is the blown hightlights. If captured as a RAW file you could reprocess with some recovery. Posting tech details re camera, lens , metering, exposure etc can help maximise the suggestions offered. Looking forward to more of your pictures.

[Randy Stout]

Fil:

I stand corrected on my comment about your post processing on the fish. What an amazing capture that the light angle on the fish was perfect!

Tony of course hit the highlight issue. It is such an interesting capture, that it is worth some work to tone down the highlights, work on the sharpness of the bird,etc.

There is some very good educational info on the site, in the educational forums. Spend some time browsing there, and you will learn a lot of tricks.

One skill you have to master as a photographer in the digital era is to watch your histogram. It will really help prevent exposure problems, or at least let you retake the photo at the time.

It is best to get the file as go as you possibly can in the camera, don't fall into the trap of trying to fix everything in post processing!

Cheers

Randy

[Grace Scalzo]

I think that this is an amazing image with the prey dripping blood and the nice light on the fish. As far as the blown highlights go, that in no way ruins this for me. What I did here was a slight adjustment to the shadows and highlights, adjusted levels, and sharpened. I would like to have more room on the bottom, because even tho the legs are under water, the eye still needs to "see" where they are. Oh, tightened up the crop too. All that pond does nothing for the action. I look forward to more of your images!

[Stu Bowie]

Welcome to BPN Fil, and a great first post. There are a lot of knowledgable guys and girls on this site, and we all grow as we go along. Looking forward to more from you.