RED DANCING AT ESTERO

[Randy Stout]

This fellow was putting on quite a show at Estero during the latest IPT.

D700 500mm f/4 f/5.6 1/1000s ISO 1600 EV +.7

Comments appreciated

[John Blumenkamp]

Really nice pose... the feather pattern of the wings looks really interesting against the texture of the water.

[James Shadle]

Randy,
What I found interesting in this Reddish is the white feathers.
I've only seen one other like it!
James

[Juan Aragonés]

I like the pose but the image needs more sharpening for web size. It looks a bit overexposed to my taste, but not sure if it due to my screen. A touch of contrast and saturation boost would be great.

[Randy Stout]

Thanks guys for the feedback.

I processed it on my MacBook Pro with high def screen, and the saturation and contrast were significantly higher than they display on my work PC. I tend to like darker images, but sometimes overdue it, so erred the other way this time. With the saturation, I was concerned of pushing the reds to unatural levels with too much saturation.

Because of the ISO, I was careful about how much sharpening, but agree it could stand a bit more, esp. as it appears on the work screen.

I will take a second pass at it tonight and repost. Thanks again everyone.

Randy

[Daniel Cadieux]

Randy, I really like the pose you got on this guy...nicely shows off the neat white feathers he has as part of his wing plumage. I can't wait to see your repost, I'm sure you will be able to give this image the boost it needs - this one, as posted, needs some contrast and additional sharpening.

[Randy Stout]

Good evening:

Thanks to the helpful input, I went back and did a mild adjust in levels and curves, a very light additional pass on USM for web use. This image is a modest crop, ~15% from original, for composition.

Any additional comments appreciated!

[Daniel Cadieux]

Randy, the repost has much more life into it...the egret has much more "pop" to it. Even the water looks better. For the levels/curves adjustment: if the original started off as a 1 and the repost is now a 10 (just throwing easy numbers as an example here) I would probably settle somewhere in the 7-8 area (hope you know what I mean...). I'm still amazed at the perfect timing you got!! :-)

[Juan Aragonés]

Randy the repost looks much better in terms of saturation and contrast but I am still thinking that a litle bit of more sharpening for web presentation would be great. I am sure that the orinigal is sharp at 100% but when you downsize for web presentation, even the sharpest image of the world can show a litle bit soft. Thanks for considering my sugestions :-)