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Great Egret
A pre-dawn shot at a coastal lake (Lake Curalo) in Eden on the south coast of New South Wales. I liked the colours and texture of the reeds and vegetation starkly contrasted by the white bird. Some won't like the bubbles and muck on the surface but I decided to leave it. A bit off the top, left and bottom for this crop but most of the frame (maybe 3/4) retained. I've darkened and flattened contrast on the background to help the bird stand out.
Technical: Canon 80D with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 263mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/200 sec, f7.1, ISO 1600. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser @ 50, sharpness = 3, crop, lighting adjustments, NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements with Neat Image NR plugin. Modest NR applied to bird and stronger to background. Sharpened in PSE (Sharpness tool, remove Gaussian Blur: 0.4 pixels at 50%) after final size reduction.
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Hi Glenn, beautiful bird, lovely setting. I guess I'd like to see the image before you darkened the background and flattened the contrast. The white bird would stand out against almost any background. Nice to see the same bird here and in Australia. Thank you for sharing.
Joe Przybyla
"Sometimes I do get to places just as God is ready to have somebody click the shutter"... Ansel Adams
www.amazinglight.smugmug.com
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Originally Posted by
Joseph Przybyla
Hi Glenn, beautiful bird, lovely setting. I guess I'd like to see the image before you darkened the background and flattened the contrast. The white bird would stand out against almost any background. Nice to see the same bird here and in Australia. Thank you for sharing.
Joe, funny you should suggest seeing it with the background left unchanged because when I looked at the RAW again after posting - and before seeing your post - I did wonder the same. So below is one closer to the raw. I did reduce highlights somewhat on the background in this repost to try to tone down the bright stuff on the water. I think the reposted version with the brighter, more colourful background is growing on me. What do you think - I'm too close to be a good judge?