Egret over the meadow

[Barry Ekstrand]

Canon 5D Mark III, 600mm f4L IS II, EF1.4x TC
840mm, 1/1000 sec, f5.6, ISO 800 +0.7ev


Happy Thanksgiving all!

This is a re-work of a photo from earlier this year of a Great Egret coming in for a landing by the pond near my house, taken in the golden light of dusk. The egret is flying over a small rise that then drops down to the pond edge. There were a couple of things I liked about the shot: the warm light, that the egret was over land rather than the more typical shot over water, and that to me the scene had an 'artsy' feel to it. What I didn't like was that the background had some color banding towards the top of the photo that was less-than attractive. In my previous efforts I tried cloning the banding out but everything I did left it looking like it had been over-photoshopped.

This past week I bought APTATS 1 & 2 from the BAA website and as I looked at the tutorials I realized it would apply directly to this photo. So this is the outcome of a quick exercise to remove the color banding and expand the canvas about 10% on the right. Time spent was less than 1 hour, a fraction of the time I spent earlier trying to work it out.

Side note: I am wishing I had bought APTATS months ago.

Any and all comments appreciated!

Barry

[Arthur Morris]

HI Barry, Thanks for the plug. I like the image with all the space around the bird; it has a peaceful feel to it. There are some repeating patterns lower right and lower left that need to be addressed.

[Marina Scarr]

The 3 flowers really add a lot to this frame. I think I'd have to go for a pano if it were mine.

[Barry Ekstrand]

Artie and Marina,

Many thanks for the comments, they are very helpful. I plan to spend some more 'real time' on this one now that I have gotten through the previous issue.

I hadn't thought of a pano but like Marina's example very much, thanks Marina for taking the time to show it.


Barry