I had some time this afternoon to put into use the information from this forum and a very informative class from Robert Amoruso that I took during the recent Spacecoast Birding and Wildlife Festival. As usual, the bright sunlight of central Florida provided strong lighting even in the late afternoon. The position of the nest and available access presented additional lighting/exposure challenges. So I exposed for highlights and used flash at reduced power to keep the shadows on the Egret under control. Finished tweaking the exposure and contrast in post-processing.
Technical Data: Canon EOS 450D, EF 100-400mm F/5-5.6L IS USM, 160mm focal length, ISO 200, manual exposure, f/7.1, *1/200 sec, fill flash with comp, monopod.
*I didn't have the manual for my new flash unit with me to see if it is possible for proper flash sync above the default 1/200 setting
Hi Dawn. I like the composition here. I might have been inclined to back off your zoom a bit to see if you could get the whole bird in the frame, but this works for me. The light here is a bit difficult. I think you've blown some whites on the breast/neck, but if you had dropped your exposure, the shadows would be more intense. Maybe some local dodging would work there (although we now pass my PP skills).
Dawn, this is one of those images where you have so many good things going on but the whole thing doesn't quite come together. I'd blame the BG more than anything - it's so busy and so bright that my eyes keep flickering back to look at it instead of that beautiful bird's head and beak. I don't think the whites are blown on the bird but they are very close and the dark shadowed areas make them appear blown. For me, I would have liked to have you back off a bit, getting the entire bird in the image as Ian suggested and then try several different exposures to see if you could come up with something that wasn't quite so bright. I'd definitely clone out the OOF stick in the FG of the nest and then calm down the neon greens (try pulling back the yellows in the greens) and maybe even take the BG down overall with less light (try a render/light effects/spotlight combo to create a dark vignette around the bird to faze out the BG).
Hi Dawn - agree with all of the excellent advice above - all I can add is try and get the sun at your back to start with - will solve lots of the issues - I know its not always possible.
Keep em coming :)
Some may like Brazilian Pepper for its ornamental quality, but takes over areas crowding out native vegetation and now its making for a distracting BG. I've come up with two new versions to try to tame the BG. I did not adjust the Egret, since I prefer my white birds snowy vs lt grey. First revised edit - OOF stick in FG removed. BG only - layer mask, hue/saturation to tone down the red berries and neon leaves of the pepper, adjusted levels and curves, clipped shadow/highlights, blur, reduce noise.
All the above edits, plus vignetted fill layer, additional level adjustment to BG, and cloned out a few bright spots around the head. I attempted to use the spotlight option, but it washed out the Egret too much. This was my adaptation of that suggestion. I have some images with the entire bird, but the BG issues are even worse on those. I did bracket the exposures selecting this one to work with since I thought it was the most faltering for the bird. Thanks for all the great advice.
Nesting Great Egret
