American Egret

Interesting image Jim and it looks to be very nicely processed.  The whites must have been difficult to manage.  They look good except for being a little blown on top of it's head and on the upper back.  At first I thought the egret was fishing and using the open wings as a shading tool.  Then I noticed the feet were coming out of the water, so I guess this is the beginning of a takeoff. Maybe a little clockwise rotation.

Good timing with this egret - nice to see the dangling feet with water running back to the surface.

As you already know the light is troublesome here. You've done well taming it in tghe image, but the brightest areas have still lost important texture. Your only real way of dealing with trhis is to select a differnt time of day and different position relative to the sun.

There's some unusual graininess in the background that might have been introduced by the shadow/highlight manipulations.

Hi Jim, love the wing position and how he is coming toward the viewer. My sentiments about the light pretty much echo what Richard said.

I love the pose and the water coming off the feet, Jim.  The relatively harsh light is a drawback and it always makes these white species tough.  Just the nature of the uniform coloration makes it almost impossible to get any detail showing on those parts that are at an acute angle and trying to bring out detail without it looking too grayed out is difficult as well.  You achieved a pretty good compromise here and I'm afraid I don't have any magic bullet for pulling out more detail.  I tend to use Topaz Detail to help and I have a preset in the Highlights menu that I've dubbed "egret" that I use as a starting point, but it's still difficult to get anything I consider acceptable when the light is bright.  This is all a long winded way of saying "wait for cloudy weather to shoot these birds".  Haze and overcast are your friends.

I don't have any additional suggestions on processing, but I would comment that my initial impression of this was quite positive.  I like the pose and the splash of water off the feet.  Maybe a tad more room on the top??  Overall, a nice capture.

The composition looks pretty good, Jim.  I can agree with your dilemma insofar as lighting conditions, although to me the whites aren't that bad as presented, but softer lighting could certainly have improved it.  I note that you didn't mention your particular EV compensation.  I find that I get best results on white birds in sunny conditions by going between -2/3 and -1 1/3 EV depending on surroundings.  Then in post I will use shadow/highlight to adjust to my liking.   As I'm certain you are aware, shadows can be controlled pretty easily if underexposed, but if your original is too bright, it can be virtually impossible to recover white details.

Hi,

Thank you for the critiques.  I'm going to do the suggested edits (adjust tilt) and play around with the raw file in Light Room.  Bill, I did  a -1.3 ev on the later images in the series and this one was about -.67 ev compensation.......................Jim