Flight Of the Green Heron

Very nice flight shot of this GH. They do move fast and can be somewhat erratic in their flight, but you've managed to get it in the frame. For the comp, you could easily add canvas to the right, giving a bit more room to fly into. I might also tone down the blues, they appear a bit oversaturated on my monitor.

I'm a newbie at the flight shots, and I admire this one. Nice and sharp and I like the yellow and lime green against the blue BG. I have only seen one of these, and have not been able to capture a decent shot of one yet. Excellent image.

Nice catch. Very sharp image. Although more room on the right would be ideal , as you have stated, I think it is fine, as is. You could trim a little from the left and create a less centered image if you don't want to make more canvas. Blues are a little saturated.

this looks really good, Mike. looks sharp with good dof and a nice wing position. with this bg it probably would be fairly easy to add a bit of canvas in front.

Nice image, Mike. Great wing position and you have a nice lighting angle as well. Looks like a pretty big crop but you have decent detail and could easily add space to the right.

Hi Mike,
The bird looks super, sharp and detailed. I agree that more room on the right and lowering the saturation on the water would improve this.

Welcome! Nice comp and pose with that wing showing. Agree with the other comments, but this is fantastic to get this bird in flight. Sharon

Nice down wing position. Looks pretty sharp, but at this size it appears that the critical focus might be on the front wing? Can't tell for sure. A little canvas in the front would help out with the overall composition. The blue water feels a bit over saturated. Maybe backing off a bit. Still a very nice image. Nice work on your birding photos

Thank you for all the comments and suggestions. I really appreciate all the input and tips on how to improve my photos. Like I said earlier I am new to bird photography and I want to learn as much as I can. With that said, here comes my "dumb" question. I understand how to create a canvas around a photo to make a frame, but I'm not sure how to add it, lets say in front of a bird shot to give more room for the bird to fly into. Are we talking about adding the background in front of the bird?

I agree with Keith on this shot Mike. I would decrease the saturation on the entire image just a bit to get more natural tones.

Mike,
Saturation nits already covered. Like the bird and the down wing position Mike. Great capture. By the way there are lots of these guys in San Diego area but they are just hard to find. Usually tucked inside reeds. Santee lakes has many of these guys if you have not there before. Nice job.

Are we talking about adding the background in front of the bird?

Hi Mike: Yes, the suggestion of adding canvas means to extend the background to that it appears the bird has more room up front. If you'd like, I'd be happy to do a quick job on your image to show you what the result might look like. Let me know if you're interested.

Keith

Keith,
Thanks.. that would be great. Can you use the photo on this site ?

Mike

Mike,

I like the flight pose, the position of the wings, eye contact and the view of the trailing feet. Over all the image seems over saturated to my eye and a reduction of saturation may help the colors to appear more natural. This looks like it may be a large crop because of the lack of detail. There is a fine halo evident around some parts of the bird that can be eliminated by carefully masking and selectively sharpening just the bird in post processing. The composition feels tight to me in front of the bird, having more space there allows the bird to have room to virtually fly into. If this was a large crop and you have more of the original frame in front of the bird I would leave more there for a more balanced composition. I agree with Keith that the focus appears to be on the wing and not the face of the bird