Egret Portrait

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

An Egret in some nice morning light at Gatorland, Orlando, FL. Just love to shoot up close for those gorgeous details on birds. The 100-400 II is a GEM of a lens.
1/8000 (I could have reduced the SS for some more DOF I guess)
f/8
ISO 800
7D II
100-400 II

[Randy Stout]

Sanjeev:

The soft colors in the bg play well with the birds bill and iris. Nice breeding colors on the lores.

DOF is always a challenge for these long billed fellows. What focal length did you use? Yes, I would have tried trading a little shutter speed for a bit more dof, although depending on your distance, it might not have made a big difference.

I will often take a shot on the eye, and followup with a second shot 1/3 of the way along the bill , out from the eye, to try and manipulate my infocus zone to include the bill tip, and eye, always favoring the eye, of course. For me, the body is less important focus wise than the eye and bill.

Nice job handling the whites.

Cheers

Randy