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 Great Egret Preening - Nikon D200, handheld, f6.3, 1/1600, ISO 200, Nikkor 80-400mm VR at 340mm, natural light Just a simple Great Egret (Ardea alba) image that always seems to tickle my funny bone when I view it because of the pose. I was wandering through a Florida Spartina marsh when I came across this egret preening and watched as it seemed to turn itself into a pretzel! Mia More Great Egret images            Great Egret in tidal lagoon - Nikon D200, handheld, f7.1, 1/640, ISO 160, Nikkor 80-400mm VR at 400mm, natural light I’ve always liked the calm mood this image conveys partially because the stalking pose of the Great Egret (Ardea alba), the silky smooth surface of the water, the reflection and how the out of focus Snowy Egret and Little Blue Heron give the frame a depth that wouldn’t be there without them. It also brings the memory of that morning to the surface of my mind, a cool February morning, my friend Adrian and I laying in the wet sand at the edge of the tidal lagoon, my other friends Mac and Rachel were photographing to my left, the salty smell of the Gulf of Mexico and the sun that had begun to gently warm my back. Friends. Birds. Photography. Peaceful. Serene. Delightful. Ahhh. Mia More Great Egret images Image taken at Fort De Soto County Park, Florida.
I enjoy taking images of birds that include their natural habitat and behaviors, I think that it helps to tell the story behind the photograph. This was taken early in the morning as the sun had just begin to touch the grasses, the bird and the water. Great Egrets move slowly while they are hunting then when they see their prey is within reach they make lightning fast movements to stab or capture the prey. I think of them as “stealth” hunters. Lately I have had a few people ask me how what settings I use when I photograph so I thought I would explain how I took this image a bit more in depth. I use aperture priority when photographing, by using that I can control the aperture, the ISO and my exposure compensation settings. I turn off auto ISO in my cameras setting because I want to decide the ISO and not allow the camera to do that. Here I set my aperture at f7.1 to get both the bird and the surrounding grasses sharp and that worked well even though that caused my shutter speed to be quite slow for being handheld but as I almost always handheld when I lived in Florida so I had a fair amount of practice at it. The shutter speed was a combination of the aperture I used and the ISO, in this case I used ISO 200 to get as much of the detail to show in the bird and grasses as possible in the available light. If it had been a bit darker when I took the image I may have had to use some positive exposure compensation so that the egret would be exposed correctly. I always try to expose the images so that I don’t have to lighten them in post processing which can introduced unwanted noise. If the light had been brighter I may have had to use negative exposure compensation to keep the whites from blowing out. Other people employ different settings and techniques to get their images and those can work equally as well, I use the methods I do because I am used to them and they work for me. I always photograph in RAW, and use Adobe Photoshop to process my images. Adobe Elements; which is far less expensive than Photoshop, can also be used and has almost the same features as Adobe Photoshop. For White balance (WB) I use auto, that works the best for my tastes. If I need to adjust the WB to make the image warmer or cooler I can do that in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) by sliding the temperature adjustment to warmer or cooler or by selecting the preset WB’s built into ACR. In postprocessing I masked the bird and grasses and only sharpened those by using smart sharpening. Mia  Great Egret (Egretta alba) in a Florida tidal lagoon I remember clearly the day I photographed this Great Egret in a tidal lagoon at Fort De Soto, Florida. It was very hot and humid but there was a slight breeze coming in from the Gulf of Mexico, I was sitting in the water of the lagoon and the water felt cool against my skin. Tiny little shrimp were crawling on my legs and I wanted to laugh about that so much but didn’t dare for fear of scaring away the Great Egret. I think that Great Egrets are beautiful though they can be difficult to expose the whites correctly. Here the morning sun helped me to keep the exposure under control without blowing the whites. This egret was either going into or coming out of breeding plumage as shown by the slightly green lores, in breeding plumage the green lores would be almost a lime color while in nonbreeding plumage they are more yellow. I love how peaceful this image makes me feel and how the distant shoreline and sand dunes give this image a nice sense of place. I know it will always remind me of the great times I had photographing birds at Fort De Soto, one of my favorite places on earth. Mia More Great Egret images 
Great Egret in flight – Light on White I do not normally take many images of birds in flight that are almost directly over my head but I made an exception in the case of this Great Egret (Ardea alba) because of how the light affected the whites of the bird and the thin cirrus clouds in the sky overhead. Exposure of white birds can be very challenging, if the exposure is too light some of the whites will be blown and will show very little detail. If the exposure is too dark the whites can look gray or muddy and spots of noise may show up straight from the camera or in postprocessing. I used no exposure compensation when I photographed this great egret. I think the thin clouds helped to diffuse the light. This image was taken at 8:20 am in the month of May, so the sun had been up for a bit over two hours. For exposing a white bird it was probably getting late. I had been kneeling in the shallow waters of a lagoon when I saw this egret heading my way so I stood up and got ready for the bird to circle overhead as it made an approach to land. I wanted to stand so I had a complete 360 degree range of motion, I am glad I did that or I may have missed this shot. I was using my 70-300mm VR lens because the lens I normally used for photographing in Florida was being repaired. I’ve heard people say you need at least a 400mm lens to photograph birds, I sure didn’t need that reach for this image. Great Egrets are found on every continent except Antarctica and can live as long as 25 years. In Florida they were more used to human presence and allowed closer approaches than they do here in Utah where they are a bit more skittish. I love the beautiful details present in the white of my egret, how the wings appear translucent plus the spread of the wings and tail. The thin cirrus clouds against the blue sky are very appealing to me too. Mia  |
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© 2012 Mia McPherson - All Rights Reserved, all images are protected by International Copyright Law, do not use, print, reproduce or download my images without my permission. Log in |
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