My First GBH

I have been waiting to get a shot of the GBH at our lake ever since getting my camera. We startled each other and he took off. I grabbed several shots in continuous shooting mode, but they all had some shake. Also, it did not help that the shots were towards the sun in the late afternoon. I'm not sure what to do about camera shake short of getting an IS lens (not much chance of that on a limited retirement income). The terrain was a bit too rugged to try to set up a tripod or monopod. I will make it a mission to take pictures with less shake, but at 60, I don't seem to be nearly as steady as I once was.

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hey this is a nice great blue heron bif. what was your shutter speed? if you can keep it above 1/1000 often times that will keep your pics blur free. you can do this by bumping the iso and then dealing with the noise in photoshop.

- hung

royce10 wrote in post #3311132
hey this is a nice great blue heron bif. what was your shutter speed? if you can keep it above 1/1000 often times that will keep your pics blur free. you can do this by bumping the iso and then dealing with the noise in photoshop.....

Thanks for the comment. Could it be that the kit lens can't get a really sharp focus at 300 mm? The shutter speed was high enough it appears.

Here is the EXIF data.

File Name _MG_1330.CR2
Camera Model Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XTi
Shooting Date/Time 6/2/2007 6:25:14 PM
Shooting Mode Aperture-Priority AE
Tv( Shutter Speed) 1/1250
Av(Aperture Value) 5.6
Metering Mode Evaluative Metering
Exposure Compensation +2/3
ISO Speed 400
Lens EF75-300mm f/4-5.6
Focal Length 300.0 mm
Image Size 3888x2592
Image Quality RAW
Flash Off
White Balance Mode Auto
AF Mode AI Servo AF
Picture Style Standard
Sharpness 3
Contrast 0
Saturation 0
Color tone 0
Color Space Adobe RGB
Noise Reduction Auto

It's not a bad shot. I'm your age and I never go anywhere without my tripod now. I have one of those pistol grip ball heads that is the greatest thing since they put a pocket on a shirt. It's very secure and you can pan or traverse with it while shooting. It's all I use now, especially with the Bigma, which is a Big 4 pound lens.

It may be focus; to me it seems that the far wing is in focus and it does not seem to be blurry (but then I don't have my glasses on

When I first got into nature photography, I used a sigma 70-300 apo dg macro lens. It was quite good actually considering its price. However when shot at the 300mm end wide open, the pics were quite soft. However, if stopped down to f8, the shots were very sharp. This necessitates alot of light so I would get my best shots during the mid-day light, which normally is the worse time to shoot. Try stopping down to f8 and shooting during the mid day to get more light. Your heron is also backlight somewhat so that can also present a challenge for the camera to properly expose. Keep on shoot and experimenting. Looking forward to seeing more of your work.

- Hung