Great Egret

[Colin Driscoll]

I had a good session with this bird this morning.
1DXII 400mm F/2.8L II & 1.4XIII 560 mm 1/800 f7.1 iso1600+1 ev
Cropped, levels, sharpen in PS

[David Roach]

Love the SH, EXP with all those whites and of course the pose. Also like the shoreline as base and composition. TFS

[Paul Burdett]

Cool shot Colin. I really like the high key effect, the pose, lighting and composition.

[greg cowle]

Pretty image, very subtle tones.

[gail bisson]

I love the wing position of the egret. Bird looks great with those alulae spread out.
Very nice light and nice and sharp.
I wish the water was not so rippled but not a deal breaker.
Do you have a bit more on the bottom? But that might make the image "bottom heavy". Hard to say without seeing it!
I would clone out the bit of blue nylon rope on the ground bottom left,
Gail

[Randy Stout]

Colin:

Great pose, excellent color of whites, like the 'anchor' below of the shore line

I do find the ripples a bit of a Venetian blind effect, and did a version with them softened and desaturated a bit, which helped improve the impact of the bird in the image. Personal taste really, but worth a bit of a fiddle.

Cheers

Randy

[Colin Driscoll]

Thanks for the views and comments. Gail, I saw that bit of blue after I posted, too concentrated on the bird. Randy, thanks I have had a go at reducing the impact of those ripples, too many craft on the lake over Easter, even early in the morning. My masking wasn't perfect but hopefully adequate!

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Colin, beautiful bird, lovely spread wing position. I like the image a lot. As Randy wrote... the shore anchoring the image works well. I've viewed the image several times before commenting on this, I even looked at images I captured here in Florida of Great Egrets in similar poses. The alulae appear grey on my screen, in Great Egrets here that is white like the rest of the bird. Did those feathers grey out trying to recover highlights or are they grey in Great Egrets in Australia? Other than that, wonderful image in nice light. Thank you for sharing.

[John Mack]

Nice outstreched pose with the bird about to land i assume. The high key looks very nice.

[Colin Driscoll]

Hi Joe, I'm sure in real life they are white. I think it's a shadow artifact here, they look similar in the raw image. Thanks for the comment.
John, yes, landing.

[Randy Stout]

Colin:

I like the repost re: the softened ripple effect. It highlights the bird better, with less completion for ones attention.

Cheers

Randy