Snowy Egret at Sunset + Repost

Gallery: AvianPosted May 4, 201644 views4 comments

Snowy Egret

The sun was about to set and the illumination on the bird and the surrounding grass really looked terrific. The bird made a really nice head turn toward the sun just as I took the exposure. The subject was pretty far away, so here again, I had to do a substantial crop. I like to stay below 500mm on this lens to retain as much sharpness as possible, but the crops do take their toll. I like the composition and look of this; it is my favorite "style" of image. I spot meter on the bird and let the darks fall where they may. This was also taken at Live Oak nursery in Saint Martin Parish, Louisiana.

If you will notice, this bird has yellow lores (and likely feet to match). Other snowy Egrets nesting at this site, have very dark coloration that is an orange-red color. Dennis brought up a question regarding this dark color, and while the post in question was a tad oversaturated, the repost represents a very close actual coloration.

D7200, tripod, cable release.
1/2000, f/6.3
ISO 320
Tamron 150-600mm @ 420mm
Cropped to 20% of the frame.

Comments and suggestions welcomed.

Comments

4 comments

Comment posted by Jim DeWitt on May 4, 2016 at 11:36 PM

Good composition. A step or two to the left might have moved those grasses behind the bird and made them a little less distracting.

I'm traveling and working from my uncalibrated laptop, but the whites look hot at a couple places and, in the larger version, there's some loss of detail. The heavy crop didn't do the detail any favors, either. To cope with those kinds of very high whites,I suggest pulling down the exposure compensation a little bit.

Registered on August 28, 2006, 1240 Posts, 8506 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on May 5, 2016 at 12:52 PM

I like the way you handled the lighting here, Raoul. It does produce a very artistic looking image and I agree with you that sometimes there are going to be black areas on an image-particularly when you're exposing for a white bird. I can see a hint of loss of detail from the crop, but white birds are notoriously difficult to extract detail from in any case. All in all, a lovely image.

devil

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Wayne Jones on May 5, 2016 at 10:47 PM

It's true that Looks good for 20% of the frame. I think the high contrast works well for a big crop like this, because you don't expect to see a lot of fine detail bright whites and pure blacks -- which are legit shades to portray strong light.

Registered on April 18, 2007, 953 Posts, 6435 Comments

Comment posted by Raoul Breaux Jr on May 5, 2016 at 10:56 PM

The original image had problems, so I did some additional editing. I removed some distracting background features (the light stripe and spot to the right of the bird's head, and a couple of grass seed heads). I also straightened the bird since it appeared ready to fall over. The whites were hot as Jim mentioned so I toned them down. While not my best effort, I think the revised image is better and gives a better sense of the illumination I was after. It is still soft, but overall, I think works.

Registered on April 27, 2016, 20 Posts, 142 Comments