Great Egret Preening

[Ian Anderson]

http://iandigital.smugmug.com/Nature/Wildlife/MG5252ID/803667230_AbMPQ-XL.jpg

I think this turned out pretty well but I'm curious what the far more experienced group on this forum thinks. This is my first image on BPN, so I'm interested to hear your critiques.

Shot handheld during the golden hour at St. Marks NWR in the Florida Panhandle. This was one of the more unique poses I captured of this bird:

Lens EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM +1.4x
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/640
Av( Aperture Value ) 6.3
Metering Mode Evaluative Metering
Exposure Compensation +2/3
ISO Speed 200 (Highlight Priority Mode)
Focal Length 185.0 mm

[Ian Anderson]

PS - I should also mention that I shot it this morning after being inspired (to get up early on a Saturday) by the warm welcome I have received at BPN.

-Ian

[Ian Anderson]

On more follow up - I did a little retouching to remove the branches and reduce the bokeh halos:
http://iandigital.smugmug.com/Nature/Wildlife/MG5252ID/803667230_AbMPQ-XL-1.jpg

[Randy Stout]

Mack:

A lovely first image. Unique lighting through the wing, with good preening head angle, interesting repetition of line in feathers and background. Nicely exposed .

For my taste, it is slightly too tight on each side. I would strongly consider a version with the black stick below cloned out. It is a high contrast situation, which really draws the eye, and detracts from the subject.

Again, a very nice image. Congrats.

Randy

[Ian Anderson]

Randy,

Thank you so much for the wonderful feedback and I appreciate your critique. I felt like the sides were a little too cropped as well, but didn't know whether or not to clone out the stick. It is definitely distracting. Taking what you said, here is a better version - less cropped and cleaner branch. It looks like SmugMug (my host) actually replaced the intermediate file, but this should be the final version:
http://www.iandigital.com/Nature/Wildlife/MG5252ID2/803667230_AbMPQ-XL-2.jpg