Black-Crowned Night Hero

Hi Ashley and welcome! This is a nice bird and a nice first post. I like the look he's giving you and also the two out of order feathers! Your whites, esp on the head are a bit bright, but overall, well done. Nice job on the bg.

Very nice pic. I really like the composition and perch. Nice pose and eye contact. The whites on its face look a tad blown. Other than that well done.

Hi, Asley and welcome. I like the diagonal on the perch and the heron's eye contact I am looking forward to your posts from that part of the world. I was there many many years ago but not into photography. Beautiful place and I imagine many birds.

Hi Ashley: Welcome to NPN and thank you for posting in the Avian gallery. You certainly were able to get close this this Heron to create this nice image at 190mm. Great stuff. I like your composition. Most of the exposure looks pretty good. The white in the herons face look like they are bit overexposed with little or no detail. Maybe there is some detail in the RAW file (I'm assuming you're shooting in RAW!!). In the larger version the background looks like it has some artifacts of your darkening it. I can't tell if that is what caused it or not, but at f/2.8 I would think the background would look smoother (especially the transitions from dark to light). Still a very nice first post. Looking forward to your images and participation in the critique process.

Many thanks for the warm welcome and for sharing your thoughts Sharon, Robert, Harry and Keith, much appreciated :)

Without a doubt, the most detracting part of this image are the blown white on the side of the Heron's face, something that's completely my fault, as I've gotten into a bad habit of setting by base level for exposure compensation usually at +2/3, for the simple reason that much of the field work I've done so far I find myself either trying to shoot birds against a bright sky or hiding in the shadows under foliage or leafs.

I only started taking my photography seriously about six months ago, and although I have excellent equipment and have already taken what must be somewhere between 15-20K photos in that time, I'm still trying to come to grips with getting exposures correct in rapidly changing lighting conditions, but I have every faith I'll get the hang of it in time ;)

RAW is indeed the format I shoot in, and I tried my best bring back some detail in those whites in PS, but only could manage minimal success without there being too much difference between the natural parts and the parts I was working on.

Although certainly not questioning that they're there, I don't quiet understand what you mean by “artefacts” present in the background Keith, if you could clarify this for me it would be appreciated.

Very much looking forward to posting more images here and in the wildlife forum and participating on other people's threads too.

Thanks again guys, all the best :)

Ashley

Hi Ashley, welcome on board !

Very nice first post. I like intense colors and diagonal perfect composition.

Bye, fabrizio.

Many thanks Fabrizio, genuinely appreciated :^)

Still looking through your amazing website BTW ;^)

All the best :^)

Ashley

Welcome to NPN, Ashley, a nice first post. very nice comp and a good pose too. you'll get the hang of exposures. try going out on a day when the light is changing fast and just shoot a lot, paying attention to your histogram after each shot--you can learn a lot fast. I think what Keith is referring to is that the bg, particularly above and left of the bird looks sort of unnatural--I suspect it's more likely a result of the blur filter than the darkening.

Hi again Ashley: The thing that I noticed the background may have been a result of the darkening and the blurring. The upper left corner of the image is an example of what I'm seeing. The patterns created from the highlights and the natural greens feel a bit odd. They almost look like they were painted in ( I know they were not ). In the smaller version it doesn't seem to show, either because of the size or the amount done to each version. Hope that helps explain what I was referring to. Keep 'em coming. Looking forward to more of your work.

Ashley,

Nice pose and sharpness of the foreground and bird. As mentioned some of the whites on the cheek appear too bright and show little detail. Perhaps a more subtle blur would have worked better on the background than what has been presented, I think it would look more natural.

Welcome to NPN's avian critique gallery, it is a great place to learn and grow as a nature photographer

Welcome to NPN Ashley Sweet first post! Minor nits have been mentioned, whites in bright sunlight are always pretty tough to expose correctly. Looking forward to seeing more of your photos.

Ken Archer

Many thanks Brian, Keith (again!), Mia and Ken for your feedback, much appreciated :^)

The smaller image is a replica of the larger one in fact, just smaller in size. Almost certainly the distracting elements you're referring to are a result of my over-zealous working of the Blur utility in PS; being relatively new to post-processing in PS, I hope you'll understand my current propensity for riding the odd new tool as hard as a highly excited 6-year old with a brand new bicycle might to see how fast the thing can go – LOL ;^p

Seriously, there may be a few more where I've also gone a tad overboard with blurring out the BG, however, in light of the time I've invested over the past few days of uploading (with a very slow internet connection) so many of my latest photos to flickr, I'm not intending to mess with any of those again for a while at this time. All the same, I will endevour to keep this a little more in check from now on ;^)

I've nearly finished uploading a batch of my latest photos, so you can expect me to be posting up new images quite regularly, hopefully many of which will be of species that are not all too familiar with you guys living in the west :^)

Thanks again for your time and valued input. Wishing each and everyone a great day, or night, ahead :^)

Ashley