Little Blue Heron

I went out to improve on some shots I took this morning of ducks, a hawk, a snowy egret, and such. Found a Little Blue Heron perched atop an old post in the water instead. I took a bunch of shots, experimenting with apertures with my new-to-me 100-400 L lens.

This is at f/22, 1/250 sec, FL=400mm, ISO 1600:

They are a bit soft, #1 more than #2. I think that going with f/22 is way too much with too slow a speed for the movement going on. It looks like you have real nice light, bright light. I think f/8 is the best starting point, with that bird and distance you should be able to get the whole body at f/8, that will give you much lower iso and faster speed, #2 is really pretty nice, better settings but a nice softly detailed Heron, Well done.

Thanks for the comments. Yeah, it was a bright sunny day, and I knew f/22 was "too slow", but I was experimenting, since the heron was being quite boring just sitting there for a while, so I played with aperture just for the heck of it. And in the middle of my f/22 settings, he/she groomed a bit, then went back to being boring. Sigh. Still, an interesting experiment.

shinksma

I have found f8 is optimal with my 100-400.

Regardless of the softness you got some very nice composition on a great looking mature species. I have never got one with the crest fluffed up.

Regards, Ron

#2 for me Steve

Silverfox1 and kmunroe, thanks for the encouraging words.

shinksma