Great Egret Takeoff Number Two

This is the next in a series of the Great Egret which I have been sharing recently. This is directly after the Great Egret Takeoff photo, and several before the Flying Great Egret photo.
Several people have inquired if I used flash or filters for these photos, and the answer is no. I did not use a flash or any filters for this photo. I also did not really have to do anything special such as shooting in manual mode or using exposure compensation. I did have to make some minor adjustments to the tones of the bird and the background. Basically the bird is too bright and the background is not dark enough for my taste.

If you take the time to visit my facebook photography page, you will see that I have also included two screenshots, one is the original un-processed RAW image, and the other is the processed RAW image, which shows the adjustments which I have made in Adobe Camera Raw where I do most of my post processing work. Many of the adjustments I have made here are standard adjustments normally made by the camera when they are saved to JPG files. The RAW files are essentially a digital negative which require processing before they can be turned into JPG files for viewing or sharing.

While using RAW does create more work, it is also much more forgiving than using JPG mode. As you can see in the before screenshot. the bright white bird is overexposed and you can not see the detail of its feathers. The exposure could simply be brought down in Adobe Camera Raw to fix this. Alternatively, as I have done, the whites and highlights have been turned down, the shadows turned up and the blacks turned down. Contrast has also been increased dramatically, and the clarity has been slightly reduced to create a softer feel for the photo.

Some other changes to the finished image not shown in the screen shots, but all done in camera raw include: sharpening, noise reduction, lens profile correction and a bit of post crop vignetting to further darken the corners. Also a minor crop for composition, basically removing the top 1-4 of the image to make this an 8x10 ratio.

ISO 400 - f-2.8 - 1-5000s - 300mm - Minor crop for composition - Tripod and Gimbal

Fort Snelling State Park in Bloomington, Minnesota on 6-6-2014 at 5:00 PM
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