We were heading down a small blackwater tributary in the Peruvian Amazon at night, in our small skiff, when we spotted this Cocoi Heron off to the left. Fearing we would spook him I grabbed a quick shot, which I grossly overexposed; I posted a version of that frame awhile back. As we drifted closer I struggled to adjust my settings, unable to see what I was doing in the dark, and overcompensated by reducing the flash way too much, underexposing this frame by perhaps 2 stops. I've done my best to salvage it, and since I like the pose and love recollecting the moment, I've decided to share it for this month's theme.
D7200, 80-400 VR @ 200mm, ISO 3200, 1/160s @ f/7.1 manual, fill @ -3.0. HH. 90% of full frame.
I think it was worth recovering this image and you did a good job pulling the exposure up by 2-stops. The image quality has suffered a little with loss of detail in the darkest feathers but it is still not too bad. Well done, regards, Ian.
Good recovery for sure. I too like the black background. I like the angle of the legs and perch. The image does look flat IMO due to the flash. Better than not having the image at all...
Thank you all. I don't often see diurnal birds at night, at least not to photograph. But I certainly wasn't going to let this moment pass without trying.
Given the flatness and lack of detail in the OP (about which I agree), here's another approach: diurnal bird, nocturnal view.
Cocoi Heron at Night, #2
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