Reddish Egret

[John Hawkins]

This was captured earlier in April on cloudy foggy day at Ding Darling, Sanibel Fl. I used my Sony A100 with a Sigma lense, f/7.1, 1/500, 0 ev, Iso 100, 360mm. All C&C's welcomed. John

[Gus Cobos]

Hi John,
I like the composition and capture, you have a good head angle and good eye contact...I like the open bill...recommendations...I would increase the saturation and contrast just a tad, the image looks a bit on the flat side, also would selective sharpen the eye...looking forward to your next one...:cool:

[Harold Davis]

i could be wrong, but this looks way underexposed. i think if it were properly exposed, you would have a high key image. the bg should be totally white here? al? i worked on it for a few minutes and used a d-lighting feature in capture nx2 with the better quality setting that helped open up the shadows and made it look better. but when i set the b&w point is when the bird looked best, colorwise, and it totally blew out the bg.

next time in this light, try some flash. will help with the exposure and details in the bird. the open beak here is a bonus and i definitely feel a connection with the bird!

[Alfred Forns]

You nailed it Harold It has to be underexposed !!! Go back and take a peak at the histogram .. the exp comp should have been close to +2 !!!

[Lance Peters]

Agree with Gus comments about the composition and head angle - Great Eye MR H - under exposed.
Nothing wrong with having large area's of flashing highlights (if you have your blinkies turned on) as long as they are not on your bird.

looking forward to seeing more

[John Hawkins]

Thanks guys, I looked again at the histogram and it is about 3/4's to the right. I guess I should of pushed the wall in this instance.i do have some shots in which it is close to high key images but didn't get quite focused enough. (these birds change directions so quickly) The clouds and the fog kept changing and I didn't keep up with the changes. I do need to learn how to selectively sharpen certain specific areas. Thanks, John

[Alfred Forns]

Hi John for some high key images the histogram will be totally blown .. particularly in the sky. It is fine to have the entire sky blinking as long as the bird is not. A meter reading of + 2 2/3 is not unusual for heavy overcast !!!

For your posted image I'm guessing just over one but remember all cameras expose differently and could be a significant variation, many times 2/3 of a stop !!! In Canon there is normally a 1/3 difference between the D50 etc and the Mk3 !! Has to do with the old slide vs film usage many years ago.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

I cannot say it is technically perfect, but you have an awesome pose here. I love the open bill! Keep it up and see some more good stuff! :)