Is this a Great egret?

Sitting out about 40' away. 300 F4

Geez, I got to get me one of those big primes !!

Excellent work Kevin.

Matt.

Matt,
the problem is my keeper rate is about 10%+. When you know you can get them sharp like the bottom one the top one is just ok.
I debated upon the 70-200 2.8/4.0, 100-400, 200 and 300 lenses for days. For my purposes the 300 won out but I have to manual focus everything.

Nice shots, but why the manual focus, do you have an AF problem?

Yes, it is a Great Egret. Nice shots too. So why manual focus?

That's a monster bird....great captures!

Yep, I had to learn about the black beak and feet difference from the Snowy Egret. I'm curious, too. AF front or back-focusing?

The second picture is very sharp so I'm curious too with the manual focus.

I can get a sharper image (sometimes) by manually focusing. The difference is minimal and I am guilty of pixel peeping. Both images were manually focused but I can get more results like the bottom photograph doing it manually and results like the top one when spot focusing automatically. Additionally It is easier to make the eye pop when doing it manually.
I would rather get a sharp photo out of the camera than using PS to sharpen it. I'm using a 40D and I bet using microadjust on the 5 and 50 might have helped.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

In order to make the eyes pop out more you manually squeeze the neck. Yes. I use a 40D and have to do - sometimes a lot - sharpening in pp. I should raw exclusively. If I remember correctly Shots straight from the 40D come out a bit unsharp. Do what I've been too lazy to do myself a focusing test. I'm a noob myself so my keeper rate varies from 0 -80%. Bad focus is just one of the reasons.
Very good shots BTW.

I couldn't get close enough to them and other than shooting them and possibly having a red spot in the feathers I will have to make due. Both were straight out of the camera with minor cropping, brightness and contrast in DPP

I had a front focusing issue on my 40D and Canon adjusted the focus on it when I had the shutter replaced....no matter what I have to sharpen them out of camera in Photoshop before and after but I noticed I had to do less sharpening after the adjustments Canon did.