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From a week or so ago. Sunrise up close with an Egret, at Malheur Reserve in Oregon. The Egret stayed close to me for sunrise, and I was able to take several Photo's. Struggling as always in post, trying to decide what I like, along with what I should actually like. Z7ii 300mm f2.8. Thoughts? Thank you, Tim
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Hi Tim
First of all, nice catch! Beautiful looking bird.
For images 2-5; I'm assuming all of these are cropped in a bit? Do you have any more room at the bottom to leave in? The bird's feet are cut off (or only barely showing).
Overall, I really like the atmosphere (the low hanging sun providing warm, golden light); especially in image 1. You could try playing with the shadows and brightness a bit to see if you can bring out a little bit more detail there (while still keeping it so it's clear that it's a sunset shot). Increasing the saturation of the yellows and oranges may enhance the warm feeling a bit more (though it's alway a fine line between enhancing and overdoing it; a matter of personal taste as well).
Jochen
1 & 4 would be my choices as being the best of the lot. Considering the lighting, I'm not sure the feet matter much. The look of the water in #1 is much more to my liking than the saturated blue of the others. All of this is, of course, a matter of personal taste.
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I like the bird's pose in 3 and 4 the best but I agree the blue water looks a bit over saturated and maybe the whites a bit too white for that early morning light. The light on the Egret is really nice in the first image but the overall image looks a bit muddier and might benefit from a tiny bit of cooling with the Temperature slider. Generally speaking it's a rare white bird that I don't use some Highlight Recovery to pull down the white feather tones to bring out some detail in those areas.
I'd also like a bit more room for the Egret's feet but in all but the last shot they are (as someone posted above) lost in the shadows so it's not a huge deal. If that is a full frame image and you want a bit more space under the feet you could likely do a small Free Transform canvas stretch to add a small amount of space at the bottom.
As posted I think something between the third and fourth images with maybe a bit of highlight recovery on the whites would be the best. IOW, not quite as white for the bird and saturated blue for the water as the fourth image but not quite as yellow as the third image but something close to those two for the great pose the Egret is giving you in those images.
Bill, Cleveland OH.
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I especially like the composition of number one with the warm light focused on the face. I would maybe look into seeing if you can fix the two detail-less burned out spots if you had some details in the raw that could recover those parts. Various ways in Photoshop to try, depending on whether the pixels are totally blown. Also I'd yearn to see more of what the bird is standing on to tell more of the story. You could give up some of the sky above the head, but don't crowd it. Nice image!
Vote for #3 with the warmer tone on the bird and the water. I'd be tempted to increase the saturation of the yellow on the beak just a hair to make that stand out more, but it's a lovely image as it is.
