Wonderful interaction, Sandy. Really cool poses and disheveled feathers. At any distance this image looks fine, but when I did some pixel peeping there appears to be a blown patch on the head of the bird on our left and maybe some minor selection issues around the crest tufts on the bird to the right that you might want to look at. It’s interesting how the shadowed whites blend so well with the blure sky-I wonder if that’s how they look to a fish?
Wonderful interactive shot. Excellent detail and handling of the whites. Looks like you had some nice light and somehow they seem to blend into the sky. Another WOW shot.
While I enjoy the action (as also noted by others) and how well you controlled both the bright whites and shadow light, there is a slight issue with detail, though mostly in the foreground Egret. You didn’t mention which lens you used, though with the D850 I suspect the 200-500. If so, the sweet spot for that lens is f/8 for crisp center focus and only a tad of fade-out toward the edges. I shot that camera and lens combo for several years and I still think it is my all-time favorite camera for wild life photography (though the D500 is a really close runner-up, especially for focus lock).
As to Dennis’s pixel peeping, the brown spot is shadow from the bird’s mane (so to speak) as it can be seen also on its outstretched left wingtip. Snowy Egrets, while appearing pure white are not so much, especially during mating season.
The issue I have with the detail is that the background Egret is pretty sharp-ish while the foreground Egret is slightly OOF (as can be seen in eye focus on both). Given the proximity of both Egrets to one another, at f/10 both theoretically should be in equal focus. All theoretical probabilities aside, my take is f/10 vs f/8 and that your focus point was somewhere between both birds, not on the foreground Snowy. F/8 would have put the foreground Snowy in super sharp focus and the BG Snowy pretty much in the focus you are showing.
It’s a great shot and to be admired for the difficulty of the overall shot… I love these guys during mating season as there are always great territorial disputes taking place and your shot has captured one of these exciting moments.
