Great Egret + repost

Gallery: AvianPosted October 6, 2011238 views8 comments

Canon EOS 7D
EF400mm f/5.6L USM
10/5/2011 – 7:50:14 AM
1/125 sec
Aperture priority
f/5.6 (I know now that this needs to be 6.3 or 7.1)
ISO 200 (I know now that this needs to be higher)
My backyard
Raw, LR3, CS5, full frame except for slight rotational cropping

Pros: That it's full frame, the light, the fog/mist, that you can see how wet it was, the overall early morning feel of the image, that the egret is walking straight toward me, his/her body language.

Cons: Not the right settings for sharpness or detail.

Comments and suggestions are desired and appreciated.

Thank you!

Comments

8 comments

Comment posted by Bill Chambers on October 6, 2011 at 3:45 PM

RE: your pros and cons - I think you're being a little hard on yourself about sharpness/detail. You can still capture very sharp images at f/5.6, they just may lack the DoF you desire. I think the comp is very nice here, and I love the OOF BG. The only distraction in my mind are the wayward sticks/grass in the FG, and a good deal of that could probably be cloned away. A nice image.

EDIT - One remark I forgot to make earlier is that the image seems to be a tad underexposed; I think you could brighten things up a little without losing detail in the whites.

Registered on April 10, 2005, 753 Posts, 21216 Comments

Comment posted by Verdon on October 6, 2011 at 3:48 PM

Great shot Barbara, love the BG!

Registered on June 10, 2011, 147 Posts, 1444 Comments

Comment posted by Allen Brooks on October 6, 2011 at 4:04 PM

I agree with your pros,especially how the egret is posed. As far as sharpness goes, they (the experts, of which I'm not) say the main thing is for the eye to be in focus and that looks to be the case here. I would agree with the comment about the foreground foliage. I like "content aware/delete" in PS as a way to eliminate unwanted areas in a photo. It usally give a cleaner result than using the clone tool. Also, if you're able to get these shots in your backyard (lucky you), it seems a tripod would allow you to use a low ISO and shutter speed and increase the aperature if needed.

Registered on July 27, 2011, 262 Posts, 2597 Comments

Comment posted by Philip Hodgkins on October 6, 2011 at 5:07 PM

f/5.6 (I know now that this needs to be 6.3 or 7.1)
ISO 200 (I know now that this needs to be higher)

I agree with Bill. Brighten it up a little and knock the junk back and you have a nice moody morning image.

Registered on July 24, 2006, 2741 Posts, 12349 Comments

Comment posted by Ian Mason on October 6, 2011 at 5:09 PM

It's a beautiful image, and I like the foreground as it is. I agree just a little brightening might help (especially the whites to make them pop against the dark background), and I get the feeling he is leaning a bit to his right This perception could easily be corrected if you felt the same way.

Registered on December 14, 2005, 399 Posts, 2305 Comments

Comment posted by Barbara Graham on October 7, 2011 at 1:12 AM

Thank you very much for the comments and suggestions. Here's a repost with a little more rotation and a little more brightness and more contrast. I think that if I wanted to try to sell this image I'd need to clone out the wayward sticks and grass, but I think that for the image for me I like it the way it is, so I didn't clone that out.

Registered on July 27, 2010, 1310 Posts, 5035 Comments

Comment posted by Bill Chambers on October 7, 2011 at 11:57 AM

The repost looks much nicer - has more life and "pop" to it.

Registered on April 10, 2005, 753 Posts, 21216 Comments

Comment posted by Angela McCain on October 9, 2011 at 10:18 AM

Cool you could get this close with a full frame bird. Even with the repost-bring up those white some more. I know there is fog/mist, but the bird is still a white one and should appear so.

Registered on April 19, 2009, 367 Posts, 3589 Comments