Richard Goldenberg

March 2025 - Reddish Egret

Original

About the Image(s)

I took this photograph of a Reddish Egret on Feb. 8, 2025, at the Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. The photograph was taken just after dawn in very low light. There's some noise in the image due to the high ISO and low light and the image is a bit soft, but I enjoy the painting-like quality of the image.

The photograph was taken with a Sony Alpha 1, Mark 2, with a 200-600 mm lens. The exposure was 1/1250 second at F / 6.3 and ISO 12,800. The aperture was as wide open as the lens would allow. By default I had the shutter speed set to 1/1250 because the lens was at 600 mm and I wanted to counteract any vibration/shake in the camera. If I had another chance at this photo, I would have loved to have tried a slower shutter speed and a correspondingly lower ISO.

4 comments posted

Maria Mazo

Hi Richard,

Despite the technical challenge of capturing a high-quality image in low-light conditions, I really like this one because it stands out from the usual images I see. The blue cast is beautiful, and the detail and pose of the egret are very nice, well complemented by the square crop. Posted: 03/12/2025 10:25:16

Bruce Benson

Richard, Interesting image with nice detail in the feathers and sharp considering the lack of light. The clean background is very difficult to get in their environment. Not sure if I like the blue cast due to lack of contrast from the background Bruce Posted: 03/12/2025 11:28:22

Dr Isaac Vaisman

Richard, the Reddish Egret is the most interesting bird to photograph specially when they are looking for food. They give you the VIP performance in dancing and flying. Unfortunately, your image was created in very difficult light conditions and does not give justice to the beautiful and colorful bird. Also, when photographing birds in a perch/tree, it is desirable to get the whole body and legs the best you can, or crop the image on purpose but much tighter. Posted: 03/15/2025 17:47:21

Adrian Binney

Hi Richard. I think your aim here is to finish with an arty image, completely different from the norm.

Assuming this is right, I would take what you have and go further into art/painterly effect, rather being left with an image that looks like you haven't corrected for cast and noise issues. Enhance these issues and play with a vignette using a similar cast/colour is my suggestion. Posted: 03/21/2025 17:38:29

PID Digital Dialogue

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