This was from my trip with James Shadle in early September....the juvenile was trying to get the adult to give up a fish. I wish I had dropped back to f/8 and increased the shutter speed on this one but this particular frame had both of their eyes at a good angle and demonstrates the behavior.
1DMKIII
500mm f/4L IS USM
Manual mode
Evaluative Metering
1/1250
f/10
iso 400
Tripod + Wimberly II from the deck of Hooptie Deux II
Joel, I too like the action. Those white birds are so hard to capture. You did a nice job with the whites and stopping the action.
Behavioral shots are my favorite.
Nancy
What an original pose you have here, Joel! There are two things that bother me about this one that I think are fixable but would take a bit of time on your part. First, there is a blue cast to the areas of the feathers where they are in shadow. You might try to bring that down a bit by lightening up the dark tones in those areas and then neutralizing the whites away from the blue side.
Another thing I think this photo could benefit from would be some burning and dodging. The area of the bird on the left right above his feet is pretty heavily shadowed but doesn't carry the blue cast that the rest of the shadowed areas on the right bird does. You might see what you can do with lightening that dark area up a bit so it doesn't look so muddied on the whites.
Wonderful eye contact - super behavioral image - good clarity of detail everywhere except that front top wing on the right side bird. It's a very strong image that I think could be made stronger with a few more minor changes!
Egrets
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