Low Angle Great Egret Fly-By.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I was already laying prone photographing shorebirds when this Great Egret made an impromptu fly-by. I spun the top dial speedily 5 clicks to the right to raise the SS by a fair bit to expose for the bird's whites (but did not deliberately keep track in the heat of the moment, I just knew I had to raise it and hope it was good). It turned out to be five clicks, for + 1 2/3 stops, and it turned out just about perfect. Between that and keeping relatively level and keeping the bird well positioned in the frame from my prone position I was pretty happy with the result. I still did have to rotate the image CW by 1.5 degrees in post, but all's well as I still had to crop for comp anyways.

Canon 7DII + 500mm f/4 II + 1.4TC III, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/5000s., f/5.6, ISO 800, natural light, HH, about 70% FF.

[John Mack]

Looks great. Nice to see the wing tip almost touching the water and the white reflection as well. Hard to photograph birds moving on the ground while prone. Let alone flying.

[Bill Dix]

Pretty tough to make spur-of-the-moment adjustments to track BIF while prone. Exposure looks good, and there's a nice texture on the water from this POV.

[Dorian Anderson]

Yeah, this is about as good as a low angle flight shot I've seen (and I've taken a few!) Lighting and color are amazing, and I really like the wider view. Stab of yellow beak is great.

[arash_hazeghi]

love the low angle and the wing almost touching the water!

TFS

[Brian Sump]

Daniel, I have visions of taking more low angle flight shots like this, as challenging as they are. We don't get to see them too often and the thin focal plane just adds so much to a capture like this.

Your experience paid off in hammering that SS wheel, well done. Everything about the pose, flight angle and exposure are just about spot on.

Congrats my friend!

[Mike Poole]

Just superb Dan, great light, wonderful pose from the Egret, the low angle here is not only technically difficult to pull off but really takes the shot up a few notches

Mike

[Arthur Morris]

Photographing flight while prone is far beyond me. This is superb but for the dirty underwing coverts and the shadow on the far wing.

with love, artie