Cattle Egret

Gallery: AvianPosted June 19, 201664 views8 comments

Cattle Egret

This is the mother of the Cattle Egret Chicks I posted on 6/16. Taken during nest building, she was waiting for the male to return with nesting material. I liked the illumination on the Egret and let some areas of whites almost saturate to accentuate the luminous effect against the dark background--perhaps some thoughts about how well this works.

Taken at the Live Oak Nursery ponds near Delcambre, Louisiana in April of 2015.

D7200, tripod
1/2000, f/8
ISO 500
T150-600mm @ 500mm
Cropped to 5 MP before resizing.

Comments

8 comments

Comment posted by Ed Williams on June 20, 2016 at 12:00 AM

Wow! Love the expression Raoul. Lovely colors, nice elements with the brush and the branch with the nice BG. Well done.

Registered on December 28, 2010, 636 Posts, 3499 Comments

Comment posted by David Schoen on June 20, 2016 at 8:02 PM

Nice light and soft shadows. I like the way the Egret pops against the lush BG.

Registered on November 6, 2006, 1213 Posts, 4587 Comments

Comment posted by Steve Thompson on June 20, 2016 at 9:12 PM

The color palette of this image is great Raoul. Feather detail looks good, nice pose in his habitat. Nice work!

Registered on August 7, 2014, 125 Posts, 2319 Comments

Comment posted by Kurt Bowman on June 20, 2016 at 9:50 PM

Nice comp on this one Raoul. The soft light is nice also.

Registered on June 19, 2008, 1005 Posts, 8028 Comments

Comment posted by S Govindarajan on June 21, 2016 at 12:48 AM

Splendid image, Raoul. I really like the light and the spotlight effect in this image.The head-angle and background are excellent. The vegetation and the bare branch also add to the image, but the oof leaves in the bottom are a tad distracting.

Registered on April 19, 2008, 115 Posts, 1921 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on June 21, 2016 at 9:57 PM

I love the light on this one, Raoul. The saturation of the whites works well here. My only nit is that some of the fine plumes, particularly those on the front of the bird look rather grainy-almost like a bad case of dandruff. I'm not sure what would cause it.

devil

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

Comment posted by Raoul Breaux Jr on June 21, 2016 at 10:55 PM

Dennis,

I have almost no sharpening and detail enhancement applied, and when I remove what little there is the effect is still present. This has to be caused by the large crop (to 20% of the frame) combined with the effect of the light hitting those feather plumes. I have noticed that cropping this much really degrades feathers--especially where they cross each other. Notice how the limbs and leaves look reasonably good; it is just the feathers that have the effect. With the exception of these 2015 images, I have quit taking these long shots when I don't have the focal length to adequately fill the frame.

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

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on June 23, 2016 at 4:12 PM

Very nice image Raoul, I like the dappled lighting and the perch is complementary. The pesky oof foreground grass is a bit of a distraction but not a major issue. devil

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments