Preening Great Blue Heron.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Almost every year a certain local city park pond has a reliable and tame Great Blue Heron to photograph, and this year is no exception (I think I may actually write this every year too!). This young one was busy preening for a few minutes before resuming its' game of playing a statue.

Canon 7D + 500mm f/4 II + 1.4TC, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/500s., f/5.6, ISO 800, natural light, handheld, 85% FF, a few flecks spot removed out, toned down the BG rock.

[Shawn Zierman]

Your working distance to the subject looks perfect here. I like the erecting plumage and preening pose. The flowers add some cool visual pop....though one consideration would be to loose the one that is between the knees...Otherwise, the background turned out very well on this, with a nice mix of greenery and water. I dig the BG rock too...could be a log, could be a path...whatever. It adds a nice balance to the water part up on top...

[Satish Ranadive]

Daniel Sir,
Magnificent portrait of preening Heron. I like the feather details, colors of the beak nicely complimenting with yellow flowers, nicely placed around the beak.
Rest as usual great. Love the composition.

Regards,
Satish.

[Craig Brelsford]

I'm impressed at the details you're achieving here at F5.6. Nice work!

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Dan, excellent DOF, and just love the layers of feathers. The colours of the OOF flowers in the BG compliment the heron nicely.