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first of, a shout-out to Jerome... thanks for the tip on the egret, my friend! went to the marina this afternoon, no egret, but i hung around for an hour or so, and it showed up. i spent the next hour or so photographing it as a great blue chased it around the log boom. in between territorial spats, the egret did its fair share of fishing, and caught at least a dozen little fish between the logs. here are some of the shots i got...
not trying to make you look bad at all, Jerome! i'd just never seen an egret around here, much less gotten a photo of one, so i wanted to give it a shot... or, in this case, 327 shots... LOL!
one of my tricks is to shoot a stop or so underexposed in situations like this... it usually makes the background darker (like the water in these shots), but it really helps keep the whites from blowing out. most of the shots i took today were between 2/3 and 1-1/3 stops under.
Great shots. It isn't easy to keep from blowing out the white feathers on a sunny day like Sunday.
My son and I saw one about 12:30pm today (Sunday, 10-4) at the Big Ditch, a DFW site NW of Stanwood. Same bird??? We only got some distant shots, which I will post up later along with other photos of our trip. Like Rocky, I have never seen one this far north. There have recently been reports on Tweeters of great egrets in the area.
Great shots. It isn't easy to keep from blowing out the white feathers on a sunny day like Sunday.
My son and I saw one about 12:30pm today (Sunday, 10-4) at the Big Ditch, a DFW site NW of Stanwood. Same bird??? We only got some distant shots, which I will post up later along with other photos of our trip. Like Rocky, I have never seen one this far north. There have recently been reports on Tweeters of great egrets in the area.
Big Ditch? never been there... this egret just sort of appeared a little after 4 PM... finally got tired of being rousted by the GBH and left around 5:30. it flew off like it was heading upriver...
Big Ditch? never been there... this egret just sort of appeared a little after 4 PM... finally got tired of being rousted by the GBH and left around 5:30. it flew off like it was heading upriver...
one of my tricks is to shoot a stop or so underexposed in situations like this... it usually makes the background darker (like the water in these shots), but it really helps keep the whites from blowing out. most of the shots i took today were between 2/3 and 1-1/3 stops under.
The last one is my favorite as well, Rocky. Your technique worked well on these photos. I'm surprised you guys don't see them up there more often. I've seen them all over the place here in NW Oregon. Looking at the ebird map, northern Oregon probably has 3 to 4 times more sightings; however, there are plenty of sightings in your area.
I'd say you had a good day, I very seldom see these egrets so close-up. Again, some great shots here!
The last one is my favorite as well, Rocky. Your technique worked well on these photos. I'm surprised you guys don't see them up there more often. I've seen them all over the place here in NW Oregon. Looking at the ebird map, northern Oregon probably has 3 to 4 times more sightings; however, there are plenty of sightings in your area.
I'd say you had a good day, I very seldom see these egrets so close-up. Again, some great shots here!
Chad
The farthest north I have ever seen a great egret was in the vicinity of Lake Vancouver. There have been several reports on Tweeters of recent sightings in Snohomish County. I don't know if we are all spotting/photographing different birds or the same bird. I posted up links to Rocky's, Jerome's, and my photos on Tweeters in the hope of eliciting some comments on the recent sightings.
Photographing bald eagles on a sunny PNW winter day is a good opportunity to practice using negative exposure compensation to prevent blowing out their white heads.
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