Juvi Snowy Egret

[James Shadle]

Alafia Banks, Fl via the "Hooptie Deux"
07/17/2009

Nikon D300 with Sigma 300-800 @ 700mm
Manually metered, ISO 400, 1/500 @ F16
Full Frame

Why F16?
As I sat in the water, the young birds would parade past uninhibited by my presence.
This image was created at my lens' minimum focus distance.

With the magnification I was working with, at that distance I was working, DOF has almost nonexistent wide open.
I wanted the crab and the Snowy's eye sharp.

I put the AF sensor on the bill, right between the crab and Snowy's eye and then stopped down to F16. The result was very close to the image as I had envisioned it.

Background is green water created by mangrove reflection. Being that close to the subject, and a good distance from the background, lends it's self to a distraction free background that helps your subject pop.

Thanks for your comments in advance.

This is not a hit and run! I will offer critiques tomorrow, right now I'm getting swords witched up.
My personal goal is offer 10 critiques per image posted.

Thanks James

PS To those who attended the GTG at Wako, we could not have picked a better place or group of people.
Thanks for making it such a success!!!!!

However the locals no longer believe Wako is short for Wakodahatchee, meaning "Created Waters" in the Miccosukee language. They are now pretty sure Wako is a Yiddish word meaning "nutty people with big lenses".

[Ofer Levy]

Fantastic image! The crisp sharp crab put this over the top. Since the oof body doesn't really add to this awesome image and since this is full frame I would suggest a tighter crop as shown in here.
Cheers,
Ofer

[Harshad Barve]

Excellent image James , Lovely use of DoF , whites looks so good and tack sharp crab and killer BG adds so much here
TFS

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Lovely image. Simplistic design. The crab is a big plus. It is nice that you got the crab as well as the eye in focus.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Fabs Forns]

Great use of techs, partner.

Awesome sharing today!!!!!

Negative space is in the perfect proportion to the size of the subject in the original presentation. Way to go!

[arash_hazeghi]

Way cool James, love the sharp focus and the crab! well done.

[Ofer Levy]

Negative space is in the perfect proportion to the size of the subject in the original presentation.

Hi Fabs, just for the discussion please can you be more specific as to what in your opinion is "the subject" and what is the "negative space" in this image.
Thanks,

Ofer

[Gyorgy Szimuly]

Comment number 7 :D
Excellent image. Nice to see how the Sigma is performing.
Lovely catch. Love the contrasty and clean bg.

Szimi

[Randy Stout]

James:

Nice to see you posting an image.
Colors, subjects, DOF very nice. Nice teaching point on DOF.

Before I read any comments, I did study the image, and found myself studying the change in focus secondary to DOF at this close working range. I can see a bit tighter crop from the right (about where the wing joins the body.) That would still maintain most of the negative space in the LUC, but tend to move our attention more towards the crab/bill interaction.
For my taste, Ofer's repost is a bit too tight.

Hopefully a lot of people will chime in on this one.

Cheers

Randy

[Krijn Trimbos]

For me the original is perfect! In some way the body of the Snowy lures me towards the crab, furthermore it gives a sense of depth which works very nicely here! Last, I don't know if this was intentional, but the bill is pointing nicely into the left bottom corner which works nicely from a compositional point of view. I love the exposure, and the action captured. Wish it was mine!

[Randy Stout]

James:

Well, after doing the crop I mentioned, and looking at the two images side by side, going back and forth a number of times, I have to admit, your original crop is the best. IMO,it has to do with the shapes/masses in the image, almost regardless really of the subject matter. The mass of the birds body is simply a more pleasing shape as you cropped it, versus tighter as I suggested. It balances better with the negative space ( as Fabs pointed out)

Very educational.

One of the many reasons I like BPN.

Randy

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

Hi James,
I prefer the original version - better proportions...:)...and thank you for the explanation - I always forget to change my aperture when the bird is at really close range...
Great to finally meet you yesterday - I had a wonderful time!!!
Best,
Nicki

[Danny Laredo]

Great capture James.

[Blake Shadle]

What works for me is that this isn't a crop. This is full frame, meaning composed in camera. We should always be looking for ways to improve our in camera technique, and this is an excellent example. Awesome image.

[Ilija Dukovski]

Just perfect, well planned and executed in full frame.
Really stands out.

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Awesome image James and so good to see you posting here. My vote goes for the original too and for the reasons mentioned above. The balance is perfect in the original post. Great to see you all yesterday. A fun time for all !!!

[Fabs Forns]

Hi Fabs, just for the discussion please can you be more specific as to what in your opinion is "the subject" and what is the "negative space" in this image.
Thanks,

Ofer

The subject is obviously the bird and crab and the negative space is the green BG. In the OP, there is balance and proportion, the subject should be 2/3rds of the frame and roughly balanced with 1/3rd of neg space. Once you invade the neg space with a bigger subject, the image becomes too tight and the subject cramped in.

[Doug Brown]

A great image with a nice explanation of what you were trying to accomplish in camera. You succeeded in getting exactly what you wanted. Congrats. I prefer the original crop to the repost, and thanks to Fabs' explanation I now know why. :)

[James Shadle]

Thanks everyone.
Ofer thanks for taking the time to do a re-post and starting an interesting conversation on composition.

In this case I prefer the original (I don't always). Here is why, I didn't do any math when composing this image, IMO the original image feels better balanced and without the extra space(I don't want to say negative, because it's a positive)the image would feel cramped.

With a gun at my head to crop this image, this is the composition I would use.

[Justin Reznick]

WOW, James, beautiful image! Background is clean and complimentary to the subject. Subject is tack sharp! Wonderful colors in the bill, eye, and the crab. It all contrasts so well with the brilliant white of the Egret.

[Randy Stout]

James;

I thought you had stolen my crop off my computer for your repost in #19! That is exactly where I cropped it to when I tried it for my comment in pane #9, but as I mentioned in pane #11, after staring at them side by side, I preferred your original.

Pane #19 has its strengths compared to the original, but the overall image is stronger in the original.

Such fun.:D

Cheers

Randy

[Aiden Blake]

I love the original image here the most. The other crops lose something in my opinion.

How awesome that you managed to get the Egret with a meal in his mouth too. Much better than just a standard zoom-in-to-head portrait.

Looks like spectacular light too to be able to shoot at f/16 and a relatively low ISO.

[Ofer Levy]

Thanks everyone.
Ofer thanks for taking the time to do a re-post and starting an interesting conversation on composition.

In this case I prefer the original (I don't always). Here is why, I didn't do any math when composing this image, IMO the original image feels better balanced and without the extra space(I don't want to say negative, because it's a positive)the image would feel cramped.

With a gun at my head to crop this image, this is the composition I would use.

Hi James,
I like your repost. (#19)
Since the "subject" of this image is the head and crab - it makes sense to concentrate on it rather than to let oof parts of the original image which don't really add any interest to take precious space.
I love this discussion - this is the true meaning of a critique forum.
Cheers,
Ofer

[Blake Shadle]

Great discussion. A lot can be learned from this thread!

[Fabs Forns]

As an addendum to the technical side of the discussion, note that James was able to use f/16 because of the great distance of the background from the subject, allowing it to still be blurred at a small aperture.

[Blake Shadle]

Good point, Fabs.

[Kris Mortensen]

Superb clarity in this image, really love the intimacy and detail on both the crab and the eye! I am assuming you are happy with the performance of that lens! Any complaints with it? Anyone else have any experience with it? Judging from this image, it looks like a winner!