Great Egret Breakfast [Archive] - BirdPhotographers.net

Steven Grogger

09-12-2010, 02:00 PM

This shot was taken in the morning with overcast skies on 9 September. Camera was supported by the driver’s side mirror at Cedar Hills State Park near Dallas, TX. Edited exposure, contrast, and sharpened in Adobe Camera Raw. Used shadow/highlights tool, cropped and processed through Topaz DeNoise.

Camera: Canon 50D
F-stop: F/5.6
Exposure Time: 1/500 sec
ISO: 125
Focal length: 400mm
Metering Mode: Pattern

Julie Kenward

09-12-2010, 06:14 PM

Steven you've got some good things going on here - nice eye contact and that fish is super sharp and detailed! A few things you can improve on next time...you've got white hot feathers on top of his head - be sure to check your histogram in the field as you take your first photograph to make sure you don't see any white areas that are blown out (they'll blink at you if you've got that set up on your camera options.) Also, being limited to the car certainly had a play in the angle of the image. Getting down lower so you are more at the bird's eye level will always help strengthen the image - give the viewer better eye contact with the bird.

It looks like you did a noise reduction and didn't mask back in the feathers of the egret. Try running it and then creating a layer mask. Set your FG tool to black and then use the brush tool to go over any area with feathers - this will take the noise reduction out and put the crispness back into those feathers.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Steven Grogger

09-13-2010, 02:20 PM

Jules, thank you for your help. I’ll make sure I check the histogram and try the layer mask.

Lance Peters

09-13-2010, 09:37 PM

Hi Steven - good advice from Jules - turn on your over exposure warnings in camera.
Like the fish in the bill - whites do look quite smooth - never a good idea to run noise reduction on your subject - IMHO - want to keep as much detail there as possible. NR on the background only is the way to go.
Looking forward to seeing more :)