Snowy on Takeoff

[John Rowell]

Captured this Snowy Egret just at takeoff from the horizontal branch. This was next to the Sanibel fishing pier last week.

D300 with 600 mm
ISO 200
1/1600 sec. @ f5, +1/3 exp. comp.

Cropped to remove some of the vegetation on the bottom left and cloned out 2 leaves along the bottom edge of the frame. I also tried cloning out the vertical branch, but think it balances better with it left in. Thanks in advance for any comments.

[Joe Senzatimore]

Fantastic detail in the whites of this image. No problem for me , with the branch left in. I think it works well with the image.

[Stan Cunningham]

I like the branch left in as well. Great IQ, nailed it.

[Don Lacy]

wonderful eye contact and great pose as he is leaving the branch. I would have cropped this into more of a Pano taking it off of the bottom stopping just as you get pass the top of the bottom leaf.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Great take off pose, good exposure. I too am glad you left that vertical stick in. I like Don's pano crop suggestion. I get the feeling the saturation is pretty high on this image...

[John Rowell]

Thanks for your comments. I had a lot of trouble with the crop and like the idea of a pano crop. Dan, you're right about the saturation. I was working on it to bring details into the highlights and should have backed it off everything else. The yellows went too orange.

[christopher galeski]

nice takeoff image,good detail in the whites,and nice eye contact.well done.

[Jack Breakfast]

gorgeous light makes those whites sing pretty arias...

[Jonathan Ashton]

Nice timing and I like the head coming back to the camera. This may be my envious eye but the colours look rather saturated to me too, especially the feet and orange leaf.