Noel - Ruffled Reddish Egret Ft. Desoto

Hi all,

I'm posting this image of a Reddish Egret at Ft. Desoto on this past Friday morning. I was practicing trying to stay on Sun angle to the subject, but alas only get a few fleeting instances as they walk past. For this particular bird, it looks like I was in manual mode with 1/1600 sec, ƒ/7.1 (because this bird is slightly larger and I was thinking would need a bit more DOF), and ISO 200 (just because the Sun had started to get up higher).

This was another of my "Not Nailing the Exposure" shots. I think it needed about a 1.4 increase in the exposure. There was no baiting or calling. I just sit in what I think is a great location and sort of let them come to me.

Overall, I'm always excited to see a Reddish exhibit this common behavior, but that alone does not always make a great picture. I need to improve catching this behavior in my frames.

I welcome your comments.

Noel
Rebel T6
EF 75-300mm Kit

Noel, nice shot and welcome to the forum. The exposure and details look fine. Here are a few tips/suggestions for the future, I would remove the specular highlight
in front of the birds bill, if you can get a head angle that is turned slightly towards you it is preferred but the one that is presented here is ok. I would add a little bit more room all around (if you have it)
and a bit off the bottom. If the location allows a lower angle is preferred, also I would remove the bottom catchlight in its eye. I posted a quick example, I hope you don't mind.

-Tim

Tim Foltz said:

Noel, nice shot and welcome to the forum. The exposure and details look fine. Here are a few tips/suggestions for the future, I would remove the specular highlight
in front of the birds bill, if you can get a head angle that is turned slightly towards you it is preferred but the one that is presented here is ok. I would add a little bit more room all around (if you have it)
and a bit off the bottom. If the location allows a lower angle is preferred, also I would remove the bottom catchlight in its eye. I posted a quick example, I hope you don't mind.

-Tim

Click to expand...

Tim,

Thank you for your input. There are two post processing lessons I need to learn today: 1) spot removal and 2) adding canvas. As for the head angle, I will go out and see if I can get a more pleasing angle turned towards me. I can certainly crawl down the beach a few more feet to get even lower.

I certainly welcome you changing the image as an example. I'll learn these two post processing techniques today and try to make mine look like yours. Weather conditions later this week should allow me to get a few more chances a this type of shot.

Sincerely,

Noel

Welcome Noel
I agree with Tims comments and the specular highlight was the biggest distraction. Easy to fix with the patch tool. Thanks for posting

Ruffled Reddish - 1

I tried to make mine look a bit more like Tim's. Here's what I did and where I got stuck:

1) I was able to remove the distracting highlights and a few spots.
2) I figured out how to remove that second catch light from the eye.
3) I searched the site and found a method for adding canvas (First--Image menu-->Canvas Size-->type in the new size, Second--Edit menu-->Content Aware Scale), but this method seems to have stretched the image to the new size as opposed to adding more room in the image. Tim did you use a different method to add more to the top and sides?

Also, is there a way to change the thread title? I misspelled Reddish.


Thanks to Tim and Kevin for the input.

Title fixed.

Some basics:

1- best to include the focal length in the original post.
2-zooming out here would have had lots of plusses:
a-more room in the frame for the bird that is too big in the frame as presented.
b-more dof!!!
c-more accurate focus as it is easier to get Expand AF on the bird's face or neck.

love you, a