Cattle Egret (w/Repost)

Beautiful, David. Love the subtle detail in the face and the smooth complementary bg. I could wish for more dof but would be thrilled with this in my files.

Very compelling image. I like your composition. It seems to flow naturally. Nice sharpness on the head. Those reds are pretty strong.

Great composition David. I love that you used f 5.6 on this. The head and eyes are super sharp and the foreground feathers are nicely blurred. Beautiful light too. Very sweet shot David.

Cattle egrets have never had much appeal for me, but this is gorgeous. I love the color and the soft light.

great shot, David. love the pose, light, detail, colors. unique and effective comp as well.

Very strong composition - a compelling image.

Nice portrait. I really like the comp and the sweet light, which seems to accent the breeding plumage. The intensity of the Egret's stare makes the shot more compelling.

David - great shot!
Nice detail in the head. An F 8 would have brought the whole bird into focus. I rarely shoot birds less than this, unless light is poor.
Bumping the ISO routinely to the greatest your camera can handle also would allow a greater DOF here.
Sandy r

Stunning portret! I like the coloration and your DoF on the birds face. The comp is a strong one with the lines of the beak and feathers directing to the left. Well done

Gorgeous looking bird, David. Excellent close-up.

Beautiful portrait with excellent detail and color. I really like the positioning of the Egret. Ron

Beautiful David - lovely detail and light

cheers
Rob

Beautiful colors and details with a very pleasing composition.

Nicely Done! I like the DOF and the colors are great. Composition is very nice as well.

David, Really nice soft colors and a wonderful pose. I like your choice of aperture.

Lovely composition and I like the rich reds, oranges and buff.

I love this as presented David. Typically I'd be nitting you for lack of DOF but not in this case for me. The contrast between the very sharp head and the softer foreground feathers just sucks my attention to the head which I think works perfectly here. I've only seen a few of this species in breeding plumage around here but I do wonder (only wonder) if the saturation might be slightly high on the reds. But honestly, I haven't seen enough of them, close enough, to be sure. Excellent composition.

Addendum: Since I made the above comment I've seen evidence that proves to me that the colors presented in this image are very accurate. Live and learn...

Just stunning!

Thanks to everyone for the feedback. As for the f5.6, this was part choice, part necessity. This was shot from a boat, with my buddy Jude Haase jumping around, so I was trying to keep the shutter speed up without cranking up the ISO. It would have taken f11 or better to get it all acceptably sharp. Besides, the OOF wing and blowing feathers grew on me after a while.

As for the color, I've added a crop straight from the original RAW file with no processing. Not even sharpening. I think the colors are about as true as I could get them. The warm early morning light helped.

Best regards,,,,,David

A lovely composition David, sharp where it needs to be and the OOF flowing feathers just add another dimension for me. Love the great look at the eye and the breeding colors.

Gorgeous gorgeous. Love the pose, blowing feathers and the intent stare

Hey David

A stunning image

I prefare the first post

ron

Hi LB,
As always excellent light and details. It's a pitty these colors don't last very long. The ones I shot about 3 weeks ago were not in full color.

Ronnie G.

Wonderful lighting on a very nice portrait, David.