Flight Over Blue Basin

[Don Holland]

The great egret was photographed from a boat in the Upper(Blue) Basin of Reelfoot Lake in NW Tennessee, 9:02 am, Sept. 2, 2007.
1d Mark III, 1/2500 s at f/6.3, ISO 400, EF600mm f/4L IS.

[Sid Garige]

Don,

Excellent pose and exposure control. Only thing is head is not sharp. personally its too hard for me to focus on birds neck. so i try to use smaller fstop to gain more DOF on a clean background like this. May be little selective sharpening can do job?

[Robert Amoruso]

The wing position is really cool and I like the blue sky. A head turn towards you and a sharp head are the final ingredients. The big downwards swoop of the wing caused the sensor to focus on it and you lost head sharpness. It happens to all of us.

[Don Holland]

Thanks, Sid and Robert. The selective sharpening really helps.

[Maxis Gamez]

Don,

Excellent pose and exposure control. Only thing is head is not sharp. personally its too hard for me to focus on birds neck. so i try to use smaller fstop to gain more DOF on a clean background like this. May be little selective sharpening can do job?

Ditto, You nailed it!

[Dan O'Leary]

I really enjoy this image, but agree with the previous nits. The correct exposure was key to making this image work, giving the lovely detail on the feathers displayed. Very nice. I'll also add that you might run a bit of NR on the background. Seems odd for the m3 at 400 iso. Was this a big crop? Maybe it's jpging?

[John Chardine]

I love the image except for the before-mentioned softness of the head. This seems to be just a focus-point and DoF issue.

Maybe I am fixated with eyes but I think it is fair to say that a sharp eye is one absolute prerequisite of a good bird image. If the eye isn't sharp I don't think it matters much how sharp the rest of the image is.

[Brian Wong]

Hi Don!

I like the wing position, and all the nice full feather details! It looks like an umbrella! What bothers me is the strange dark areas in the sky, especially in front of the head that I see in my monitor.

[Don Holland]

Thanks for all the input. The crop was substantial but not severe. The blurred background was not uniform. With all the problems mentioned, my time is best spent on another image.

[Todd Frost]

In my opinion this image is well worth the time, I tried sharpening the head and it makes all the difference. Fantastic image with the one little fix.
Todd