Marievale Bird Sanctuary near Johannesburg can be a very productive place. When the light is good, the backgrounds are spectacular, the water and distant reed beds provide a perfect backdrop for the birds. This Little Egret settled right in front of the hide, and I decided to use the 2x converter to get a really close portrait. I stopped down to F11 for extra DOF and increased sharpness. Comments and suggestions welcomed as always.
Camera Model: Canon EOS-1D Mark III
Date/Time: 2008:12:30 06:30:06
Shutter speed: 1/1000 sec
Aperture: 11
Exposure mode: Tv
Exposure compensation: +1/3
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Multi-segment
ISO: 640
Focal length: 1000mm
I like the beautiful blue BG and the slight sidelight that gives the nice texture in the breast feathers. The bird's placement in the frame is good as are the head angle and eye contact. Perhaps a little more headroom would be beneficial - try it out and compare.
I don't think the bottom edge would bother me if there were more room on the left side of the image. If you don't have it in the original you can copy in some of that nice background to make the image wider. The exposure and colors are very good.
Little Egret portrait
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