GBH Portrait

I think this is a striking portrait of a GBH. I do wish there was more detail in the whites of its head. Nice sharpness of the eyes. Thanks for sharing.

Excellent portrait. I agree with John on the top of the head. You might try bringing that area down with levels to find more detail.

A nice portrait, Barb. I think that I might work on the background a little to de-noise or to smooth it out a bit. He must've been pretty close to get this at 250mm.

Nice portrait Barb. I have to agree with Charlie about the BG and think this one is worth the time to work on it. Nice job!

Barb,
Very nice portrait of this GBH. I'm not bothered with the whites as I think you have good detail and they aren't blown, but I would, as both Charlie and Kurt suggest, smooth out the background. If this were my image I would insure an accurate mask of the bird in PS and then invert the selection and apply a very light Gaussian blur-just a thought.

Very nice detail in most of the plumage. Interesting angle. This looks like flash was used? Negative flash exposure compensation is a must to get natural, balanced flash images, especially up close like this image.

Thank you, everyone, for your comments and suggestions. I'll try the things your suggested.

Keith, I didn't use a flash. All the lighting was natural. It was late in the afternoon and I was getting very strong light from the west, which I think was shining right on the heron.

Some nice detail and the POV/angle works for me Barb.
Good use of the natural light, I might've notched down the bias a tad is all.
Well done!

Sweet, Barb. I really like the angle and the creek bg. The plumage looks a bit contrasty or oversharpened to my eye-I'd back off on it a bit, but that's just me.