Black-crowned Night-Heron silhouette take-off.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Taken early morning at the Venice Rookery in Florida. That place was much more productive than what recent reports say!

When I saw this guy perched nicely on the branches I knew I had to go around it, closer, and go for some silhouettes as the sun was still very low and the sky still orange-ish. Besides, the front-lit view was too far and cluttered. After a few nice frames of it perched comfortably I noticed it raising its neck alertly...a sure sign of take-off. I composed wider (love zooms for that!) to give it some room to fly into, and even so it was too close to the edge of the frame and had to add some canvas both at left and top. Perhaps even more is needed, but I'm comfortable with the tweaked comp as is with e branches balancing it out in LRC.

Canon 1D MKIV + 100-400L + 1.4TC @510mm, aperture priority, evaluative metering, 1/8000s., f/11, ISO 800, -1.3 EC, handheld.

[Doug Brown]

I think you've definitely got a nicely balanced composition Daniel. And a really cool image to boot. Love the sun shining through the wingtips. Would have like a bit more perch, but like this one a lot!

[Randy Stout]

Daniel;

Well seen and executed,as Doug mentioned the transillumination is neat, I like the parallel foot positions, colors.

In a perfect world, a single, more substantial perch to blast off of might have balanced a little more cleanly, but it works well as is. Next time, we will have to do a setup with hand picked perches:bg3:

Cheers

Randy

[Greg Basco]

Hi, Daniel. Love the light here, and the bird flying out of the frame works. I do agree with Doug and Randy that a more substantial perch to anchor the composition would improve this even further. Congrats on seeing the moment and running around to the other side to get what surely was the most interesting image possible.

Cheers,
Greg Basco

[denise ippolito]

Daniel, Nice eye for this one. I like the light coming through the wing ends and the comp is nice too. Doug and Randy make a good suggestion regarding the perch but the wing position and sharp dangling feet make this special.:S3:

[Mark Hardymon]

Can't add much Dan, except very cool shot!

[Bill Dix]

Like this one, Daniel. As noted above, the fact that the perch is included makes flying out of the frame look OK to me. Handsome silhouette, well seen.

[Peter Farrell]

Excellent capture. I agree with positive comments of others. Glad you left the perch in.
Peter

[James Salywoda]

A bit more of the perch would of been nice but this is a fantastic shot.

[Todd Frost]

Outstanding work Daniel. Love the backlight on this one. Agree with the more perch comments, but would take it as is any day. Well done.
TFS
Todd

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Daniel, loved your composition and the rim light on the wings. Well done.

[Vivaldo Damilano]

Fantastic image Daniel, like the comp and rim light on wings TFS:cheers: