Snowy Egret

[EdNguyen]

1D mk3 + 800mm f/5.6L IS lens, 1/5000, f/5.6, ISO 400, EV -0.7, handheld


This photo of a snowy egret catching a sculpin was taken at the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge in Alviso, California.

[Jamie Strickland]

wow awesome picture, great capture, amazing sharpness

wait this says handheld? double wow :D

[Sid Garige]

Very nice image. May be a little more space at the bottom?

[Arthur Morris]

Love the sharpness and the BKGR and of course, the fish. With the specular highlights, the lores and the upper half of the bill look over-sharpened. Same for the feathers on the top of the head. Also a perfect head angle.

Some SH-H on the dark upperparts of he fish would help. If it were mine, I would take the time and eliminate all of the bill shine highlights.

It is a good image but could be improved dramatically with better optimization.

[EdNguyen]

wow awesome picture, great capture, amazing sharpness
wait this says handheld? double wow :D

Thanks, Jamie. I happened to be in the right place at the right time :)

[EdNguyen]

Very nice image. May be a little more space at the bottom?

Thanks, Sid. I will try adding more canvas to the bottom left of the image.

[EdNguyen]

Love the sharpness and the BKGR and of course, the fish. With the specular highlights, the lores and the upper half of the bill look over-sharpened. Same for the feathers on the top of the head. Also a perfect head angle.
Some SH-H on the dark upperparts of he fish would help. If it were mine, I would take the time and eliminate all of the bill shine highlights.
It is a good image but could be improved dramatically with better optimization.

Thanks for the tips, Arthur. I will do some more post processing and repost the image later.

[EdNguyen]

Hi Arthur. Here's an edited version of the original. Let me know what you think. Thanks again.

[Arthur Morris]

Better with the specular highlights but the feathers on the top of the head and the lores still looks oversharpened. Can you post a JPEG representative of the converted RAW file? Do you remember doing any selective sharpening?

And a good job of lightening the dark parts of the sculpin.

[EdNguyen]

Better with the specular highlights but the feathers on the top of the head and the lores still looks oversharpened. Can you post a JPEG representative of the converted RAW file? Do you remember doing any selective sharpening?
And a good job of lightening the dark parts of the sculpin.

Thanks again, Arthur. I didn't shoot this in RAW, so the JPEG is the original :). I had set the format to JPEG to practice shooting birds in flight in 10fps burst mode, and forgot to change it back to RAW. Yes, I did a little selective sharpening on the egret and fish. Here is a revised version (I replaced the oversharpened parts with those from the original image).

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Ed. That looks pretty good. Best to practice in RAW.... Always. In fact, in never set my camera to JPEG, ever. And I try to remember to change it back when I get a camera back from Canon. (I have no idea why they set it to JPEG and get rid of all of your CFs.)

ps: I like your chioice of lens.

[EdNguyen]

Thanks Ed. That looks pretty good. Best to practice in RAW.... Always. In fact, in never set my camera to JPEG, ever. And I try to remember to change it back when I get a camera back from Canon. (I have no idea why they set it to JPEG and get rid of all of your CFs.)
ps: I like your chioice of lens.

Thanks for the tips and encouragement, Arthur. I have learned a great deal since joining BPN last week.

What is your default RAW processing when converting to JPEG as far as sharpness, saturation, etc. and do you mostly use Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom? I don't have Lightroom and currently use Photoshop CS4.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for the tips and encouragement, Arthur. I have learned a great deal since joining BPN last week.

What is your default RAW processing when converting to JPEG as far as sharpness, saturation, etc. and do you mostly use Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom? I don't have Lightroom and currently use Photoshop CS4.

Hi Ed,You are most welcome. I learn a ton here too. As far as your question above, I am confused. If I have missed your points below, can you please break it down or rephrase it so that I can better hep you if need be.

IAC, for years I used only Breezebrowser to convert my RAW files to 16 bit TIFFs (not to JPEGs). (BrBr uses the Canon conversion software.) But recently, I have started doing most of my conversions with Adobe Camera Raw in C3.

I use a generic action to create my JPEGs from the optimized TIFF files. A complete description of that action and how to make it can be found in our Digital Basics (plus tons more including my complete digital workflow).

[EdNguyen]

Hi Ed,You are most welcome. I learn a ton here too. As far as your question above, I am confused. If I have missed your points below, can you please break it down or rephrase it so that I can better hep you if need be.

IAC, for years I used only Breezebrowser to convert my RAW files to 16 bit TIFFs (not to JPEGs). (BrBr uses the Canon conversion software.) But recently, I have started doing most of my conversions with Adobe Camera Raw in C3.

I use a generic action to create my JPEGs from the optimized TIFF files. A complete description of that action and how to make it can be found in our Digital Basics (plus tons more including my complete digital workflow).

Oops. I meant converting RAW to TIFF (not JPEG). Sorry for the confusion.

[Arthur Morris]

Hey Ed, Thanks for clarifying. That's what I thought that you meant.