The Story Behind the Photo: Tricolored Heron with 2 Fish

Tricolored Heron with 2 Fish Photo Story

We stayed at the Excellence Resort in Punta Cana. The resort had an Ecological Park that turned out to be a great place for bird photography. Each morning and evening while at the resort, we took walks with our cameras in the Ecological Park.

On one morning, I saw this Tricolored Heron fly into the treetop. As I focused the camera on him, I noticed that he had 2 fish on his bill. He must have speared both of them with one shot.

The Heron flew to the ground, shook his bill to remove the fish and then proceeded to swallow both fish. This Tricolored Heron had a healthy appetite. When he was done eating his 2 fish breakfast, he flew back to the pond and continued to fish.

Tricolored Heron Photo Details

Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M1
Lens: Panasonic Lumix 100-300mm f/4.0-5.6
Focal Length: 300mm
ISO: 400
Aperture: f/7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/2500 second
Exposure Compensation: 0
Lighting: Clear, sunny morning

Tricolored Heron Post Processing

Cropped the photo and lightened the shadows using the Shadows Slider in Lightroom 5.
Used Google Viveza 2 to selectively, lighten, darken, and add saturation to the photo.
The photo also had a bit of purple fringing that I fixed by manually removing the chromatic aberration in Lightroom 5.
Used Topaz Denoise and a Layer Mask in Photoshop CC to selectively remove the noise from the photo.
Selectively sharpened the image using the Unsharp filter and a layer mask in Photoshop CC

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