Cattle Egret
by Raoul Breaux Jr
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 commentsI 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.