Strange GBH Behavior? (very LOW light photography)

[Jon Rista]

I am posting this in the "Eager to Learn" forum, because its two images that kind of go together. Near the beginning of September I was out at Cherry Creek State Park photographing the Great Blue Herons that were feeding along the shore of the lake. There must have been a total of 16 GBH in total, as well as a dozen or so Snowy Egret, lining the shore. There were plenty of gulls, duck, and even a few Black-Necked Grebes (a bird I've wanted to photograph for a while, as I knew they were around, but have so far not been presented with a good opportunity to, this day included.) At one point, a GBH suddenly picked up a nearby Grebe by the head (!). I wasn't sure what was going on at first, and I thought the heron was trying to eat the poor bird for some reason. After a short while it became apparent that the heron was moving the Grebe...maybe out of its "fishing area"? The poor Grebe squirmed for a while, after which it just gave up and kind of hung there in the heron's beak. After nearly a minute of the heron awkwardly moving the Grebe toward shore, a flock of seagulls nearby apparently decided the behavior was entirely unacceptable, and started harassing the heron. It dropped the Grebe, which seemed largely unharmed and still moving. It was, sadly, around that point that my 7D ran out of buffer space, and I did not get the full sequence of activity where the gulls harassed the GBH. The whole event made me wish I had a second video-capable camera to just keep beside me on another tripod, ready to start recording such events if they occur.

Anyway, this whole ordeal occurred in a VERY stormy day. When I first headed out the light was ok, soft but bright enough for less than ISO 1600 photos. This event occurred as a rain front moved in, along with some intense wind. It was very dark at the time I took the photos, and the odd behavior caught me off guard while trying to AF at f/8 (and the birds were at a greater distance than the key subjects I was interested in at the time). I was using 2x TC and 1.4x TC on 300mm f/2.8 lens, mounted on a tripod and ball head that was set very low to the ground for stability (which, all things considered, ended up working FAR better than I thought it would!) None of the shots came out great, only a few came out well enough to flag as barely a keeper in Lightroom.

I'm wondering if there is any way to improve these photos and salvage the strange behavioral moment. They are quite noisy (I try not to use the 7D at ISO 3200, however sometimes it seems to be an inevitability. Its days like that one when I really wish I had a 1D X at my disposal!), color fidelity is terrible (despite ample saturation boost in post). I've tuned exposure in the images below, more to enhance contrast and bring out color than to actually correct exposure, which was maybe 2/3EV underexposed at worst. I've boosted clarity a lot to bring out detail...I usually use +20 to +25, this image uses +45. Some fairly ample noise reduction and sharpening as well. Both images have identical treatment. I don't know if there is anything else that could be done to salvage these shots, so any C&C are greatly appreciated. I would also love to know if this kind of behavior is normal for herons? It seemed rather odd...
Exposure:
1/1000 sec @ f/11
ISO 3200

Equipment:
Canon 7D
Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 L II IS
Canon EF 2x TC III
Kenko 1.4x Teleplus Pro 300 DGX
Gitzo Mountaineer GT0541 4S. Series.0 Tripod
Gitzo GH1780QR Series.1 Mag. Center Ball Head

Time and Location:
9/2/2012 4:42pm
Cherry Creek, Colorado

http://i.imgur.com/v1hDg.jpg

[James Shadle]

Here is another frame.
http://i.imgur.com/huSct.jpg

[John Chardine]

Hi Jon- Great Blue Herons are top predators in aquatic ecosystems and have very catholic feeding habits. We think of them as sit-and-wait fish eaters but they do eat other birds, amphibians, reptiles, you name it. This is not to say that they east grebes often but clearly they do sometimes from your remarkable photographs.

Regarding image processing I would offer one of your images up to our monthly raw image processing exercise run by Roger Clark. Here's the link.

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/93575-Monthly-Processing-Raw-Images-Exercise

[gail bisson]

What an amazing sighting Jon.
I feel your pain at having an image that shows award winning behavior but the lighting, distance etc etc don't give you that award winning image because of IQ.
Keep putting yourself out there and one day the stars, light. settings will all line up for you!
Gail

[Jon Rista]

Thanks John, for the tip about the monthly raw exercise. I'll check that out.

Going back over these photos, I think the entire sequence was manually focused. My 7D doesn't AF at f/8 unless there is exceptional light, and it was a pretty gloomy day that day. Looking through the full sequence of shots I do have, they ended up progressively farther out of focus the farther the GBH moved toward shore. I think that is partly why IQ is so poor (ISO 3200 being the other.) Sometimes I wish Canon had a little optional manual focus split prism that could be flipped or slid into place at the press of a button for moments like these. :P

@Gail: Generally speaking, every time I've headed out this year (first year I've been doing bird photography), I've had better luck, taken better photos, and learned a lot of new things. Despite these two shots lacking the detail I wish I had, I feel pretty good about how far I've come this year in regards to bird photography (and photography in general, as I've only got a couple years under my belt alongside a busy day job that sucks up most/all of my week.) I hope my luck continues on into next year! :)

[Kerry Perkins]

Jon, I'm afraid I have to point out some harsh realities of this image and its capture method. If you have to stack teleconverters to get a bird this big into your frame then you really need to simply (not as simple as that really) get closer. You have attempted some heroic efforts in post but the fact remains that there just isn't much detail in the original capture. Adding clarity does nothing more than increase contrast, which does not help with lost detail at all and actually can make it worse. Also, the 7D just doesn't do well even at ISO 800 IMO (I still have one and use it), it needs lots of light. I got a chuckle from your comment about the split prism viewfinder, I haven't seen that in decades. :c3: I think my Rollieflex had it.

I too have a day job that sucks all the life out of me, but bird photography puts life back into perspective for me. Don't get discouraged, keep working at it and get out in the field as often as you can. It will get better!

[Jon Rista]

Hi Kerry, thanks for the reply. I fully understand about getting closer. I was much, much closer to other birds, GBH and Snowys, that were on my end of the shore. Not to say I managed to get any better shots of those birds...there simply wasn't enough light for my 7D to perform well in any respect (I loath the IQ from the 7D at ISO 3200 and beyond), and on top of that I was dealing with some pretty high winds and driving rain. It was just a bad day to be photographing anything. It just so happened that this particular sequence of activity occurred down shore from where I had set up shop. I'd been experimenting with AF at f/8 on my 7D for a while, and was trying it again (and again it failed...no surprise there). I guess I would have captured even less detail if I'd only had a 2x TC on the 300mm lens, and I'm happy that I managed to get a glimpse of some less common GBH behavior at all.