Squacco Heron

[Nancy Bell]

Photographed along the Chobe River in Botswana from a boat, last April. Boats make terrific blinds. You can float near by the birds and they are not disturbed. I was also renting the Canon 600 f4 L IS lens. That was terrific, too!

Canon 1Dx, Canon 600 f4 L IS, 1/1600, f5, ISO 400, from tripod mounted in the boat.

[William Dickson]

Nice looking bird Nancy. I like the light, the feather details look good. Very natural looking image Thanks for sharing

[shane shacaluga]

Nice image showing natural behaviour. Golden light is superb. Good details and the bird really pops out against the dark BG

Unlucky that leaf was covering the back part of the tail

Glad you enjoyed the 600

TFS

[Daniel Cadieux]

The preening pose is just about perfect, and the subject is very sharp...perhaps even borderline oversharpened as posted. I like the marshy habitat and warm WB. The tail touching the water is rather neat. This would have lent itself well as an original vertical IMO.

[gail bisson]

Very nice image Nancy.
I love the golden light.
I have to agree with Daniel that it appears a touch oversharpened.
Also think this would work as a vertical,
gail

[Nancy Bell]

Thanks all! When I viewed my posted image, I also thought it appeared a bit over-sharpened. Need to review my web sharpening settings. I just started to use Adobe CC and maybe unsharp mask is a bit stronger than previous versions. I also thought a vertical would be good but in the heat of the moment with my camera and that huge (rented) lens on a tripod I couldn't change the orientation fast enough .