![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/snowy-egret-1908-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"snowy-egret-1908-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nAs I occasionally do I went archive-diving last night and\u00a0ran across a series of Snowy Egret\u00a0photos I like that I’ve never posted on Feathered Photography. Some of my inexperience in those days\u00a0may show in the images\u00a0but I still enjoy them and of course\u00a0the reminiscing.<\/p>\n
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1\/2000, f\/11, ISO 500, Canon 40D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4\u00a0Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n The egret caught several fish at Bear River MBR and because I was quite close to\u00a0the bird\u00a0I went to f\/11. I think in this case it worked out\u00a0well but today I’d probably have been at f\/7.1. Maybe I was thinking it might take off and I could use the extra depth of field but that didn’t make sense because I was far too close to the bird for typical takeoff or flight shots with the wings out. It may have been a decision based on\u00a0inexperience but it was\u00a0so long ago (9-2-08)\u00a0I can’t remember my thought process. If there was one.<\/p>\n I was so close to the long-legged egret I was shooting vertically and it’s a damn good thing I was because otherwise…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1600, f\/11, ISO 500, Canon 40D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4\u00a0Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n I’d certainly have butchered those wings when it lifted them straight up just prior to takeoff from the rock in the water.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2000, f\/11, ISO 500, Canon 40D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4\u00a0Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n And then I lucked out a second time when the next shot in the burst caught the wings in this interesting position instead of sticking out horizontally where I’d have cut them off. In this case the slow burst rate of my old Canon 40D (6 frames\/sec compared to 10 frames\/sec for my current 7DII) paid dividends because the timing was just right to catch these two wing positions. If the wings in either or both shots had been\u00a0mostly horizontal I’d have been SOL.<\/p>\n I think\u00a0the reason I never posted these photos in the past is because looking at the full frame preview images I can see no light in the eyes in the last two shots. But when I cropped and processed them last night\u00a0I could see that the bulging corneas of the egret caught enough sidelight\u00a0and eye color to make them acceptable for my tastes.<\/p>\n I probably lucked out a third time when I didn’t delete the last two shots.<\/p>\n Besides, over the years I’ve become a little more flexible about light in the eye if the image has compensating strengths. Some of that flexibility came from feedback from my\u00a0blog followers\u00a0for which I’m appreciative.<\/p>\n My readers rock.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n PS – If you’re interested in seeing this egret with one of the fish it caught on this morning\u00a0some photos of it\u00a0can be seen here<\/a>. The fish\u00a0turned out to be\u00a0an invasive weather loach and it was my investigations of those photos that eventually allowed me to identify the fish species and document their presence in Utah (with the vital assistance of Justina Bernstein and Utah DWR). That post was one of my earliest editions of Feathered Photography so it didn’t get a lot of attention at the time.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I occasionally do I went archive-diving last night and ran across a series of Snowy Egret photos I like that I’ve never posted on Feathered Photography. Some of my inexperience in those days may show in the images but I still enjoy them and of course the reminiscing.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/snowy-egret-1909-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"snowy-egret-1909-ron-dudley\\"")
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