Egret

[Stu Bowie]

Apologies for not being active this past week. My internet connection has been down most of the week.

There is small lake at the University of Pretoria sports ground, and the main tree on the island is the home to a few species of Egrets. It gives one good practise to shoot these guys in flight, as they are constantly flying off to fetch building material and flying back.

I was also experimenting with a plus compensation, to try and bring out more detail in the whites, and although I blew quite a few, I feel I got this one just about spot on. The BG was naturally dark.

Canon 50D
100-400 L IS USM @ 400mm
1/1250
F/8
ISO 400

+.67 comp
partial metering

[christopher galeski]

nice capture stuart,thanks.

[Tony Whitehead]

Well done, Stuart. Lovely detail in the whites and the dark BG sets it off nicely. Love the breeding colours and you have caught the bird nicely just before it passes you. The image looks a little flat and there are no bright touching the right side of the histogram. I have tried a levels adjustment just to get a white point and then selected the whites via colour range and blended with a linear burn to enhance the details in the wing. How does this version look to you?

[Rene' Villela]

Really nice Stuart! The dark BG it looks really nice! Good work!

Tony... good job bringing up those details on the wings! I like it!

[Stu Bowie]

Thanks a lot Tony. Its great to have guys like you, and the rest of your gang to help us. I just need a kick up the butt now and again to bring out the finer detail. Thanks again, and its always appreciated.

[Tony Whitehead]

Thanks a lot Tony. Its great to have guys like you, and the rest of your gang to help us. I just need a kick up the butt now and again to bring out the finer detail. Thanks again, and its always appreciated.
"Kick up the butt" sounds a bit harsh, Stuart - this was a very minor nudge:D. Thanks for the kind words though.

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

Great details on the whites,nice composition and beautiful dark bg!!!

[Maxis Gamez]

HI Stuart,

You don't have to apologize :).

I like the contrast between the subject and BG. Second re-post works well for me with more sharpening which was going to be my first suggestion.

Ideally, more head turn would give us more eye contact, but you did well with this image.

Keep them coming!

[Fabs Forns]

Nicely done, Stuart.
You blew the whites a little bit because in this case, a white subject overpowered by a very dark background, the camera meter will tend to open up to make the dark BG gray, and there go your whites. OF course, in the case of evaluative or matrix metering. Spot metering would be a different story and then you would need to add light to render the white as white.

[Mark Dumbleton]

Superb Stu! I do like the version that Tony posted, but the image to start with is perfect! Must head up to LC soon.

[Charl Steyn]

Very nice capture, Stuart. Made me remember my days at Tukkies back in the 70's.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Stuart, Welcome. Having been away for too long teaching at Bosque I must say that I have been enjoying your posted comments, so thanks for joining us here. I love the full downstroke wing position and the dark BKGR. Ideally the bird would be flying slightly towards you rather than slightly away, or at least have its head turned a bit towards you. The dirty bill was just bad luck (but could be cleaned if that fits with your personal ethics).

[Stu Bowie]

Thank you all so much for the positive feedback. I appreciate it all.