Great Egret in flight

[Martha Weaver]

I took this late Saturday afternoon. It was mostly cloudy at times with bright sun intermittent.
Saturday, Apr 23 at Smith Oaks Rookery in High Island, Texas.
Literally thousands of Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Cattle Egrets, Roseate Spoonbills, Various herons, and cormorants nest on an island. Hurricane Ike wreaked havoc to the trees there a few years ago, but the birds still come and nest. The Audubon Society has built some nesting platforms and planted some new trees to accommodate the crowd!

I was using a Canon 7D with a 100-400 lens.

[Ian Cassell]

Nice flight image, Martha. Good job on the whites. I think you may have oversharpened it a bit as there is a halo (especially prominent around the legs). A bit of a head turn towards you would have been nice.

[Kerry Perkins]

Martha, nice flight capture! I like the dorsal view (although would wish to see more of the front wing) and the lovely s-curve of the neck. The halos that we see around the legs are typically due to pushing the shadows/highlights a bit too much. Is that the case? Please post your technical info so we can do a more thorough critique. Thanks!

[John Chardine]

Hi Martha- Agree with the above comments from Ian and Kerry. I like the unusual neck angle here and overall I really like the shape of the bird. The image quality suggests to me that this is a heavy crop of the original. Can you estimate how much of the original is left here?

[Martha Weaver]

Hi Martha- Agree with the above comments from Ian and Kerry. I like the unusual neck angle here and overall I really like the shape of the bird. The image quality suggests to me that this is a heavy crop of the original. Can you estimate how much of the original is left here?

Thank you for your comments. This picture has absolutely no crop. None needed in my opinion.
However, I see what everyone is commenting on now that I am at home with my calibrated monitor. I was working on it at another computer which has a really old bad monitor, and I should know better!
I have re-worked it from the raw file and feel it comes out better, though still not done on my good monitor at home.

[Ian Cassell]

Big improvement in the RP, Martha! Good job! I frequently look at images on my monitor at work (uncalibrated cheepo Dell) and am amazed how different they look when I get home and see them on my IPS panel. I agree about little need for crop. If I were to do any, I would take a smidge off the top moving the bird into the upper left ROT position.