Reddish Egret at sunset giving me the eye

[Linwood Ferguson]

Taken Christmas Eve off Bunch Beach in Florida (near Sanibel), I waded out a bit to get the light behind me.

D300, 200-400 @ 260mm, F5, 1/800th, ISO 800, handheld. The sun was about 30 minutes from setting. This fellow was less animated than the reddish egrets usually are, but was also pretty unafraid as I walked around him. Most shots were blurred by the low shutter speed, but the sun came out from behind some clouds every once in a while, this was one.

I had several of him walking but this one had the eye about right, and the wave timing was good. The two I got of hiim with fish in his beak were not sharp enough to keep (one from blur, one from high ISO).

Suggestions welcomed.

[Randy Stout]

I like he windblown feathers, timing on the wave, pose.

To my eye, the image has quite a green colorcast. I would consider cropping it a bit looser if you have the canvas. There is a fair amount of noise in the background, and I would run NR. I am a little surprised at the amount of noise with this camera and ISO. Did you have to bring up the exposure up in post?

Cheers

Randy

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the walking pose, head angle and sharpness. A lower angle would have made it even stronger.

[Linwood Ferguson]

I like he windblown feathers, timing on the wave, pose.

To my eye, the image has quite a green colorcast. I would consider cropping it a bit looser if you have the canvas. There is a fair amount of noise in the background, and I would run NR. I am a little surprised at the amount of noise with this camera and ISO. Did you have to bring up the exposure up in post?

Cheers

Randy

No, and I'm puzzled as well. I deleted quite a few due to noise, in the 1000-1600 ISO range, it was much worse than expected. I just checked, and the picture attached had zero adjustment in exposure, I added a bit of fill light and raised up the blacks a bit. I dropped those back (both) and the image loses a lot of contrast, but also a bit of noise.

I can clean the noise up a bit with Noise Ninja, but I am a bit puzzled why it was so prevelent.

Green -- not really seeing it. None of the whites are very usable as a reference due to the sunset (e.g. pulling an auto-white balance against the highlights turns the image very blue). On my monitor they tend more toward yellow/orange than green. But I'll look more closely, thanks.

[Linwood Ferguson]

I like the walking pose, head angle and sharpness. A lower angle would have made it even stronger.

I agree. I tried squatting in the water a couple times, but old knees and fear of dunking the camera were not conducive (The sun set off shore, so I had to get in the water beyond where the bird was).

I wonder if some of the telescope makers, and the right ange prisms, could make sort of a reverse periscope, so you could stand up, point the lens straight down, and it flipped to horizontal at ground/water level? :)

[Bill Dix]

Great pose and head angle. Light is nice too. Agree that a lower capture angle would have been great, but I've had the same problem kneeling in the water and fearing salt water on the camera. Let us know if you find the reverse periscope! Wish I had found one of these guys on my visit to Bunche Beach. Well done under the circumstances.