Here's an image from the spring. This guy was very cocky and full of confidence. I caught him post preening. Something has his attention. Tried to make the best of A.F. backgrounds.
Canon EOS- 1D, EF 500 f/ 4.0 L, 550 EX flash, BB and Wimberley on tripod. My exposure was 1/ 125 sec. @ f/ 9.0 ISO 200.
To my eye, he is a bit underexposed, and I think you can bring up the whites a bit, so he doesn't look quite so grey. The whites are around 235 max on my machine, and setting the whitepoint on the brightest current white will perk him up nicely. I might also consider a crop off of about 40% of the open space at the top.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the suggestions. I was not able to brighten the whites any higher than 247.
Let me know about the repost if you can.
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Charlie Wesley
St. Augustine Beach, FL
The repost looks much better...the comp is now nicely balanced and the bird "whiter" (although I think it can be pushed slightly more). Now I only wish that branch merging with the egret wasn't there :-)
I think it looks much nicer on the repost. There is just a bit of room left on the whites, but it is pretty darn close now. Crop works better this way as well, IMHO.
Yes, the perch is a bit large and the merge/blocked feet aren't ideal, but I do like it, esp. now that the bird stands out more. You could clone out the branch intersecting his body if you feel comfortable with that sort of manipulation.