Egret In Flight

[Michael Eckstein]

http://www.meckstein.com/post/egret-flt-05-26-09-50D-179.jpg

Canon 50D 400L f5.6 1/1600 @ ƒ6.3 iso 160 handheld. Taken this Monday at Fort Desoto Fishing Pier.

[Doug Brown]

Hi Michael. The sun looks a little high in the sky, and the result is some shadowing and bright whites up top. There doesn't seem to be a lot of fine detail in the bird; not sure if this is a significant crop or if you ran NR on the entire image. I'd like to see better eye contact, and I might add a little canvas on the left. Thanks for posting!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the incoming pose and eye contact and agree with Doug regarding details and harsh light.

[Arthur Morris]

Ditto the above. In addition, it looks as if the sharpest focus is well beyond the head as the wings are far sharper than the head.

Darkening the pupil and lightening the iris (I use QMs for that) would give the appearance of a sharper head.

[Arthur Morris]

Ah, another thought for flight photography: by going to ISO 400-no problem at all with the 50D, you would have an aperture smaller by 1 1/3 more stops and gotten lots of addition d-o-f. I try always to use at least f/8 for flight photography whenever possible (unless the birds are relatively distant, i.e., large birds and long lenses....