Here is a shot I took of a Yellow Crowned Night Heron at Ding Darling
this week. I had never seen the bird before so that was pretty cool.
The sun was really bad, right after day break and not a cloud to be
found anywhere.
Mark1 DSII 500L with 1.4 TC. ISO 400 F13 1/400. I would normally
have had my shutter speed much higher, but I just pulled my equipment
from the truck and I had been shooting some landscapes the day before.
I could soften the image a little with some noise reduction I guess but
then I would be concerned about losing the detail. In any event its a bird
not seen too much so I thought I would share it.
Garry - these are very cool birds indeed. I like the intent hunting pose, and the light doesn't look that bad to my eye. Were it mine I might try to clean up the background, crop a bit from the right and add some canvas to the left. Just my personal preference.
Good looking bird, always a treat photographing them !!!
As presented would suggest having more room around the bird, a bit tight, also usually you want more room in front than to the rear ... space for the bird to move into. At Ding the key is working the bird as he moves from area to area and find one clean !! Real nice and you will be getting many more I'm sure !!!
Not bad, not bad at all! I like your comment about the lack of clouds, and that this isn't such a good thing! In such lighting you positioned yourself very well and avoided side lighting which can be quite negative (dark, detail-less shadows).
As you mentioned a higher shutter speed would have helpful in preserving detail. I think you could have sacrificed some DOF here, which also would have blurred the background as well. Not wide open, because the subject was angled toward you, but maybe F8?
YCNH are a challenge in that if the most of the bird well exposed, which includes the black head plumage, it is very likely you'll blow the whites. You did well in avoiding this.
Adobe Camera Raw has a very handy healing brush that would take care of the background debris pretty easily, and seems better than in PS itself. Once in PS clone the stamp tool usually works best IMO.
As far as composition I'd position the bird to the right, and a little CW rotation is in order. regards~Bill
Last edited by WIlliam Maroldo; 12-20-2009 at 12:08 PM.
Hi Gary - cool bird, Like AL'S repost would probably go further and remove the dark reflections in the water in the area the rock was in. Exposure looks good, as mentioned would have dropped some of the DOF for more shutter speed but more importantly to blur the BG some more.
Hi Garry,
I like your capture, you have good details and good color rendition...agree with Mr. Forns on the spacing all the way around the bird...would too consider a slightly faster shutter speed for the next one...looking forward to it...:cool:
Yellow Crowned Night Heron
