White Heron

[MTalley]

Stopped by our local art museum today (Montgomery Fine Arts Museum, Montgomery, Alabama) to view the new exhibits of William Wegman and Ansel Adams photos. Fine stuff, indeed.

Outside the museum is a large pond which, besides attracting a large number of Mallards and Canadian Geese, eh, also attracted a nice white heron. I brought my camera bag with me, but no tripod. So, I was utilizing various architectural features to steady the camera, as I had the 75-300mm lens mounted.

Photos shot in RAW (yippee!), adjusted in RawShooter Essentials (nice program, BTW), downsized and slightly sharpened in PSE 2.

Photo 1: 1/800 sec., f/5.6, ISO-200, 130 mm zoom.
Photo 2: 1/500 sec., f/5.6, ISO-200, 300 mm zoom.

[gmaize]

Photo number 1 is superb. Just the perfect moment to release the shutter. Couldn't be better.

--gmaize

[Leorooster]

Nice shots.

[robertwgross]

The bird is a Great Egret, which is a member of the heron family.

---Bob Gross---

[MTalley]

I stand corrected. I didn't think it was a Heron. I need to find our bird guide. :D

[Blackbird]

The first shot is good. The Egret is a very beautiful bird.

[witchy]

Beautiful shots!

[MCB]

I like them both, but the first one is particularly good.

Since you shot in RAW, can you go back and reduce the exposure a little? It feels like there is some detail missing on the bird's left wing. Maybe it really is a featureless white, but if there are any feathery details in there, it would be nice to see them. Maybe just dodge the wings a bit? [edit: or is it just my monitor? I've been having trouble getting a good calibration]

Otherwise, they're great. I envy your lens. :o

[MTalley]

You're right, MCB, the left wing does look a little blown out. Let me see what I can do.

I found my National Audubon Society field guide, Robert. Nice to learn something new. The Great White Heron looks similar, but has yellow/green legs. The Great Egret (pictured above) is different mainly in possessing black legs.

I need to drop this book in my camera bag the next time I decide to shoot bird pictures. :D

[MTalley]

I reloaded the RAW image in RSE and there is maybe just a smidge more detail in the trailing edge of the left (far side) wing, but not enough I could bring it out much more. Since his wings were in motion (thus the blur), it was hard to extract much more detail than what is shown in the first picture, above.

The function to show blown out highlights and shadows didn't show any flashing spots anywhere on the picture, so I would assume that is just about as good as it gets.

I would have liked to have shot at a little tighter aperature, but I would've had more blur in the wings. The Tamron is a little soft at wider aperatures. I was pleased, however, at the relative lack of purple fringing upon a 100% zoom.

[Mannytkd]

The top pic is jaw dropping, what a fantastic shot.....

[MTalley]

Here's another good shot I found from the series. Most were soft due to hand-holding at up to 300mm. This one came out pretty nicely, though. This was as close as I got to him at one point.

1/1000 sec., f/5.6, ISO-100, 300mm

[MTalley]

By the way, the first picture was almost missed due to two factors. I had my zoom a little tight from photographing before he took off. Once he started to take off, I had to quickly zoom out quite a bit (from 300mm to 130mm) and let the lens refocus.

Also, I was standing next to a large column that supports the roof over the porch I was standing on. About another 20 degrees of camera swing after this shot and I would've crashed my lens into the post (ouch).

[CyberDyneSystems]

Beautifull shots of the Egret.

[GTogs]

Very nice! I think number one is great!