Snowy Egret

[Leroy Laverman]

This morning I was lucky to get within 12-15 feet to a group of seven snowy egrets. They were very patient and let me take photos for an hour and a half before I had to leave to get to work. Here's one shot from the several hundred I took. I wanted to show all the nice fine feather details but I couldn't decide on a crop. This is full frame vertically but I cropped quite bit from the right and a tad from the left.

Nikon D80
Nikon 80-200mm 1:2.8
ISO 200 f/7.1 1/1000 sec
center weighted metering -1/3 EV

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Nice portrait and details. I would prefer a bit more head turn toward you and the plumage seems to have a slight blue cast.

[Arthur Morris]

I like the COMP and you did fairly well in rather harsh light. Needed a better head angle as per Axel.

later and love, artie

[Jim Poor]

Axel & Artie,

Is it the head angle itself or the direction the eye is looking that needs improvement? It looks to me like the tip of the bill is in the same focus as the eye.

There area a couple strange looking areas in the BG.

[Leroy Laverman]

Here's a slightly tweaked version. Removed the blue cast (I think) and tried to clean up the background some more. There were some distracting branches in the lower left corner that I tried to clone out - good eyes Jim. I also moved the eye a bit. I know this doesn't change the head position but I think it is an improvement.

[Arthur Morris]

From where I sit the bird's head is turned two or three degrees away from the plane of the imaging sensor...

later and love, artie

[David Hemmings]

Hi Leroy, I like this composition, second one looks better.