Night Heron Portrait

[Graham Owen]

http://www.solarexpert.com/photography/birds/bird-album/Night-Heron-portrait.jpg

For a few weeks I worked hard trying to get close enough to capture close up images of this pretty bird. And when the opportunity presented itself, for a brief moment, I captured this single image before the bird took to wing, leaving me with trembling fingers. I can’t help wondering how much nicer the image could have been if a smaller aperture had been chosen, rendering the entire bill in focus.

Hand held D200 settings were:

300 f/4, TC-14, 1/250 sec, f/5.6, +0.7 EV, ISO 320, flash -1.7 EV.

I spend quite a bit of time practicing my bird photography and the part I struggle most with, is sort of a dichotomy, when prime opportunities are presented, my typical calm nature is overridden with excitement and adrenaline, which hampers my speed and judgment while making camera settings and composition, but I hope the adrenaline rushes and excitement never diminish in the future. I love that feeling, and can’t wait to feel it again, hopefully later this afternoon…

Graham

[Mark Adkins]

Graham,

I agree with your own critique. More DOF. I get the same thing that you describe. See my recent post of a slow moving crane imaged at 1/2000 sec! Shot in the heat of the moment. Would have loved to decrease exposure and ISO. Noise in low light was a major problem.

Mark

[Ted Willcox]

The adrenaline rush is a good thing but we must keep it under control, it can cause camera shake. It's to bad the heron didn't turn his head to the right a bit. You would have needed a lot of DOF to get the beak in focus from that close. Nice close up of the eye. good work

[Caroline Darmo]

Very cute, agree about the DOF on the bill & the white spot in the background is slightly distracting. Nice effort.

[Tony Whitehead]

Your own critique is good James. You've done well to keep the eye sharp - it is a lovely focal point. I would increase the ISO a little to give you more flexibility regarding smaller apertures and DOF. I routinely use my D200 at iso 400 without noise issues. The other issue is whether the 1.4x if necesssary as it will gain you a stop if you remove it. The D200 has enough resolution to crop something from a wider image that gives you a bit more flexlibility in framing in the heat of the moment.