Great Egret, "floating flight"

[Dan Brown]

I captured this egret this morning at a nearby fish hatchery. It seems to be "floating" by! PP'ed in ACR, saturated the eye in CS3, sharpened selectively with NIK Sharpener Pro. C&C welcome.

Camera Model: NIKON D300, handheld
Shutter speed: 1/1500 sec
Aperture: 8
Exposure mode: Manual
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Multi-segment
ISO: 400
Lens: VR 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D
Focal length: 400mm
Focal length: 600mm (in 35mm film)
VR Image Stabilization: On
AF mode: AF-C

[denise ippolito]

Dan, Beautiful wing position and details. I like the soft blue BG. I like the framing also. A very slight head turn would have been nice-but it is still a very lovely BIF image. Nicely done.

[Harshad Barve]

Beautiful image with nice wing pose , expo , sharpness
TFS

[Arthur Morris]

Loverly light and wing position. Good eye by Denise in noting that the head is ever so slightly turned away from us; what have I created? :) :) :)

[Arthur Morris]

ps: Some interesting stuff on the bird; I am pretty sure that the unworn feathers and the black mark on the top of the tip of the bill indicate that this is a bird of the year. And note that the bird is still growing it the fourth primary.

[Ramon M. Casares]

Amazing light, very nice pose, great exposure, detail and colors. Comp-wise a bit more room to the right would've been better IMO.
Congratulations!

[Gerrie van Vuuren]

Lovely image! Like the gracefull pose & light.