Egret in Flight w/ habitat

[Bob Miller]

I took this at Bombay Hook De. on a cloudy day. I was shooting feeding egrets when this one flew into the frame
Nikon D3s
500 mm f4
HH
ISO 200
1/800 sec at f5

[Ian Cassell]

Hi Bob. Nice job getting him in flight . To my eye, though, he's sort of lost among the grass and I think it would have worked better with a shallower DOF. That's hard to do, though, when he's right up against the BG.

[P-A. Fortin]

Though he did shoot at f/5. I'm not sure going f/4 would have made much of a difference on the background. Distance to subject might be the "solution" to this DOF issue.

[Ian Cassell]

Yes, the problem is that the subject is too close to the BG so you can't really lose the DOF.

[Eric Freeman]

I like the shot as-is. It does, however, need to be rotated a few degrees counterclockwise.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Bob, you really tempted fate with the low ISO and resulting shutter speed. With that body you could have at least pushed the ISO to 400 and easily beyond that to get a much faster SS. I like the overall image, but it doesn't seem sharp to my eye and the bg is too close and too much for the scene. Your exposure and color rendition are excellent and I like the composition. Remember when hand-holding that you want the fastest shutter speed you can get, and sometimes that's not even enough. I will sacrifice a lot to get a high SS in these situations. Good job with the panning and flight capture!

[Cathy McEntee]

Hi Bob - nice flight capture of the egret. I agree with the ISO and shutter speed. What you might try is is blurring the background in CS5 (or6).