My wife and I went out to the Noxubee Wildlife refuge here in Starkville and as we were getting ready to leave we saw this guy sitting out in the water watching fish, so she stopped the car and I jumped out to capture about 50 shots of the guy. After careful selection, this one had the best lighting. Hope you enjoy!!!
In hindsight, you should have raised the ISO, dropped the aperture, and raised the shutter speed. 1/15 is too slow to capture such a bird at such a distance. Its otherwise a decent shot - compositionally and lighting-wise. Your score is solely due to the challenge topic and the lack of over the top BLUE expected by voters. they tend to like pretty over challenging, so a blue piece of glass on a black background will usually outscore something such as this. Very good for practicing though. I know how difficult these can be (One of mine) but just keep plugging away - it gets easier over time...
To anyone who gave good comments and appreciated the fact that the bird was abstractly blue, I give kudos to you. Blue herons are many different shades of blue and can sometimes look gray in certain lighting. About the sharpness, I knew that it wasn't quite sharp enough, but it was taken on a whim and like the one guy said, it is very hard to get even a semi decent picture of the bird because they rarely sit still. So, thanks for the comments those who took the time.
The subject is cropped to close and the lighting from the sunlight behind the Heron, giving it the glow, is a tad distracting. Image also appears out of focus. The only blue I see is on the birds head. If the lighting was different maybe more of the blue/grey hues of the bird would have come out.
you shold try using Save for the Web in PS. Here is a little tutorial, it will strip the exif data and allow you to get the most detail for your image.
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