Great Egret

[Kerry Perkins]

Captured at a large inland body of water in southern California, known for its salinity and birds. Early morning sun and clear blue sky reflected in the water. 7D, EF400mm f/5.6L Manual mode, f/8@1/1250 ISO 400 WB 5100K AI Servo autofocus, hand-held no flash

[Don Railton]

This is a beautiful crisp image Kerry.

I especially love the colour mix of the deep blue against the white reflection under the bird. I am not so fussed about the OOF background above, not sure what you could do about that however...

A question for you, do you have a number you keep below for your whites? I have started using 220 as my upper limit but would be interested to know what you use or what is commonly accepted as the upper limit...

DON

[Joel Eade]

Amazing texture and colors in the water, beautiful image overall.

[Kerry Perkins]

Thanks guys! Don, to me each image is unique and calls for different approaches, but for all-white birds like the egrets I try to keep the peak white values at 240-ish. For a great egret with this much feather in the frame I will go even lower, as there can be a loss of detail even at 240. I have found that "cheating" the exposure down a third of a stop for white birds works well. Your number of 220 may be too low for most images, as you should aim to get as much level from an image as you can, especially if you are going to print.

[SteveYoung]

That water is unreal. In a good way. Ultra crisp. Did you do any NR?

[Don Railton]

Thanks for the advice on white values Kerry... I try to remember to 'protect the whites' by underexposing (-1/3 to -2/3) also, its just that I don't always remember...

DON