A cormorant and an egret deciding who is boss. The BG is OOF dry grasses. Taken in the Pilanesberg nature reserve last weekend.
Canon 50D
100-400 @ 400mm
1/4000
F/5.6
ISO 800
Exp Comp +0.33
Hand held
A cormorant and an egret deciding who is boss. The BG is OOF dry grasses. Taken in the Pilanesberg nature reserve last weekend.
Canon 50D
100-400 @ 400mm
1/4000
F/5.6
ISO 800
Exp Comp +0.33
Hand held
Beautiful lighting and wonderful interaction captured in this image Stuart. Very striking composition with a beautiful BG. Well exposed and not easy to do with a white and black bird. Really love this one Stuart !!!!!
I like the sharpness, poses and the BG looks great, too. The pose of the cormorant does not look very elegant. :)
Stuart:
Like the interaction, background,perches.
To my eye the whites are a bit grey/dingy. I tried a couple of variations, setting the white point against the brightest white present in the image, the patch on the cormorants cheek, and then a second variation with increasing the brightness slider in ACR about +25. Either way seemed to help the image. Might be worth a look.
Cheers
Randy
Thanks Randy. I agree with your suggestion, and here is my repost using the brightness slider.
Love the action, detail, colours & BG. Notice that you lost some detail in the whites on the Egret in your repost Stu.:confused:
Great interaction with neat BG, agree the detail is lost somehow on the whites. Beautiful light!
I like the repost better. Good sharpness and BG. Well done.

great interaction and nice exposure
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Nice repost bhai.. loved the moment captured, loved the details and pose of both birds...
Good interaction, Stu. Repost is an improvement. It really highlights the elegance of the egret against the awkwardness of the cormorant. Great Pilanesberg BG.
Tony Whitehead
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Stuart, this is a killer action shot. Being able to see both heads and eyes clearly is awesome. such a fantastic background. congrats.
tricky exposure this mate, you did well...fabulous action and light with a typical Mankwe BG!
Great interaction and the fact that its between different species a big plus. You did very well here mate.
Very close to a contest winner... Bummer that they were not on the exact same plane so that the egret would have been square to the back of the camera. Bummer that the cormorant slipped and its head was obscured by the near wing. In spite of those things a spectacular capture.
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