Great Blue Heron Plumage Detail.

A bit similar to Joe's spoonbill he posted a couple of weeks ago. Always a treat to photograph plumage details from point-blank range with cooperative individuals. This heron stayed there well over an hour not minding my business, so all manner of photographic experimentation was possible. Here is one of my favorites form that session. Full-frame image, with just a few "dandruff" flakes removed via spot removal tool...plus tweaked contrast and saturation to taste.

Canon 7DII + 500mm f/4 II 1.4TC III, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/200s., f/11, ISO 1600, natural light, handheld (while using the "kneepod" technique). I had to lower the downsizing quality quite a bit to make the image file size fit the upload limit.

Daniel:

Nice lighting, brown/orange plumage adds that needed pop of color, well framed.
Pretty amazing that this GBH sat for you. Where I live, you can't get within 50 yards of them generally.

Cheers

Randy

Love the textures and patterns here. A interesting frame for sure.

Daniel, very artistic. I like getting outside of the norm as you did here.

Plenty of detail and I love the splash of rust. Good choice on comp, letting the feathers finish in the LRC.

Curious what the MFD is on that lens? You were pretty stinking close.

Thanks guys!

Randy: Pretty much the same here, but luckily every year we get an individual or two that become used to human presence in some of the urban ponds.

Brian: 12 feet. Not bad MFD for 700mm + crop!