Egret Portrait & Repost

Nice portrait and BG. Looks like really harsh light and a gallant try at subduing it in post process. Been there!

I like the portrait comp that you have chosen and the leather like quality of the background. You really got a good, clean shot. Nice eye and catchlight. Although he is facing slightly away, the catchlight compensates for that, in my opinion. There is some noise and missing detail, though. At 1/8000s you had a lot of room to back off on the ISO. I've shot the D300 and I'm never happy with the noise over about ISO 320. You may be able to correct both issues somewhat in post processing on this nice image.

You are right Phil. For me, it is difficult to decide how much gray/detail in the white looks right. I appreciate the input. Angela, thanks for the nice comments. You are right about the ISO. Hard to get in the habit of checking it for fear of losing the shot if I hesitate. Will come with practice. I have gotten really low noise up to ISO 1000 with this camera, but that has been rare, and it has spoiled me I think. On this one, I reduced noise 2X in the background and a little on the birds face and bill, but still some there. Thanks very much for your comments.

Jim, I'm a big fan of this type of pose/crop with Herons and Egrets (Egret a variety of Heron I understand). Looks like you got really close and that is fun. Lighting is good but I do see some loss of detail. Maybe some careful use of the shadow/highlight tool? Though, sometimes s/h causes more problems like halos. All in all not a bad portrait!

Here is a repost based on comments. More noise reduction in background and on bird. Whites lightened up.