Captured this last week during our now annual trip to Sanibel Island.  On this morning I was hanging around the Fishing Pier looking for some activity.  As happens, it was a pretty slow day and I was tempted to just pack it up and head back to the cabin.  I was standing right by the pier watching the fisherman as were the 5 or 6 egrets that were standing around waiting on an easy meal.  I turned around to pick up my tripod and this Snowy Egret was just standing on the branch.  What the heck, might as well.  Focused, pressed the shutter and this guy very obligingly took off on the 4th frame.  Guess this turned out to be a good example of only being able to get the shot if you’re there, because I surely didn’t plan it and would have missed it altogether if I’d left 5 minutes earlier.  Turns out to be my favorite shot from this trip.   

I cropped slightly to remove some of the vegetation on the bottom left and cloned out 2 leaves along the bottom edge of the frame. I also tried cloning out the vertical branch, but think it balances better with it left in.

Nikon D300 with 600 mm lens
ISO 200
Manual Metering, 1/1600 sec. @ f5, +1/3 exp. comp.

One particularly barren day for bird photography in the Ding Darling, there was not a Spoonbill or an Egret to be found.  Having just driven past all the usual good spots, I’d just about given up.  I came around a corner to a couple of small pools surrounded by mangroves and there was a pair of White Pelicans paddling away. 

It’s usually best to avoid very harsh light, especially with white birds as it just blows out the highlights and you end up with an overexposed white blotch.  This was a case where it actually worked out pretty well.  It was still pretty early in the morning and though harsh the light still had a nice quality to it.  My best recollection is that I metered off the whites and then added +1 1/3 stops.  There is some detail still in the background, but I pushed it down to near black because I liked it better that way. 

NikonD2X with 200-400mm lens @ 330 mm,  ISO 200, 1/800 sec. @f6.7

Every so often you get an interesting shot in spite of yourself.  Now in the world of bird photography it’s generally considered poor manners to print a capture from behind, otherwise known as the “butt” shot.  However, this Reddish Egret seemed kind of funny because I immediately thought that he was trying to flag down a ride.  Not many speedboats in the salt ponds of Ding Darling though, like in none. 

Early morning, 7:30 am with the sun still pretty low, the light was definitely very nice.

Nikon D300, 600 mm lens, 1/500 sec @ f4.8

This is a Roseate Spoonbill captured last year at the Ding Darling Reserve on Sanibel Island, Fl.  It’s often good preparation to look through old photos in preparation for an upcoming outing so as to (hopefully) not make all the same mistakes you did the last time.  I thought this was an interesting shot, far from perfect but still pretty good with a couple of major issues. 

First off, this was my initial year out with a new 600mm lens.  Add the 1.7 telextender and the 1.5 multiplication factor of the Nikon D300 camera and I was shooting at an effective focal length of 1,500 mm.  Even on a tripod with Wimberly head, my skill level couldn’t quite steady up enough for a full sweeping pan shot at a 1/500 second exposure.  Keep the image small and I can still live with that.

The real reason I didn’t do anything with this image earlier was that it suffererd from having my focus point set in the wrong place.  Trying to keep a bird in flight near the center of the frame takes practice, and I don’t get enought of it.  As a result, the very simple mistake I typically make is to start out with the focus point in the center of the frame.  I keep that on the bird’s body, but if he pulls forward at all I tend to cut off his bill or leave myselft with very little leading edge to the photo. 

That was the problem here.  In the original, the spoonie’s bill was pretty much up against the right edge of the frame.  Using Photoshop, I was able to copy and paste an extension onto the leading edge, moving the spoonie back in the frame.  I then blurred up the cut and paste operation a bit, but if you look at the background you can see the duplicated portions on the right side.  Still, it’s far better than it was and with some more work I could probably pretty well blend out the duplicated appearance. 

The simple fix to this is to set the focus sensor one or two steps back from the center.  This effectively pushes the bird back in the original frame and is a quick lesson I’ll hope to remember next time out.  Thanks for looking.