Another image from my day photographing the Least Bittern, this image was sharpened and cropped.
This bird was very obliging, sitting on the boardwalk for over 1/2 hour with bicycles and people walking by, unheard of, usually. Finally a group of 20 children, on a school trip, was too much for him and off he went.
They certainly don't move much, this was the best Head Angle..
I am sure some of you won't like the background or the frame but I do ...
D7000
AF-S 500mm f4
f5.6
1/1000
iso-400
matrix metering
active d-lighting on
The bird is really beautiful, great colors and feet!
Sharp, well exposed. I am ok with the head angle.
Background is OK, its the foreground that detracts somewhat for me.
If possible, I would add a sliver back in on right, it is a bit tight, crop a bit down from top, and tinker with minor crop from bottom to downplay the perch a bit. You could also vignette the corners a bit to further downplay the perch.
Cool! That was a neat opportunity. With what you describe would you have been able to get closer for portraits (and thus eliminating the railing). The background is nice overall, but if you wish you could soften the two pale streaks. Way to go, well done :-)
Thank You for all the comments...no matter what I tried with the perch nothing looked right, so I decided to find another perch..obviously this should go in OOTB because of the changes.
Only perch I had that looked ok, doubt you'd ever see one of these on a post...