My Great Blue

One of these days I'm going to get a reeealy good shot of this bird.

Would like suggestions on what to try for in the future.

Appreciate responses.
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Hi Chauncey;

Well; there's no EXIF data attached to the image, so it's difficult to see where to start... but... without wishing to sound offensive - a long lens helps!

Cheers;

Lee

lkb-28 wrote in post #5744952
Hi Chauncey;

Well; there's no EXIF data attached to the image, so it's difficult to see where to start... but... without wishing to sound offensive - a long lens helps!

Cheers;

Lee

Agreed ^ . This shot is nice, try a crop to bring the bird "closer" in the picture. I love the reflection.

I'm not really sure how much help I can offer here besides "I feel your pain" LOL!!! I had been chasing herons with the camera for over 2 years and until recently had only walked away with 1 or 2 shots. The single thing that changed for me recently was that I found an area where there are simply A LOT of herons (at a local marina) and more important, they seem to be not as afraid of humans as herons I've seen out on rivers.

My wife and I have seen many herons over the years while we were out canoing but usually you get within 50 yards of the bird and all you see are the tail feathers as they fly further down stream. So far this spring/summer I've been able to get as close as 15-20 feet to the great blues up at the marina and I've even had a couple just fly in and land next to me! I guess with that what I am suggesting is simply if you can't get a decent shot of this bird in this area, maybe see if you can find an area where there are more herons perhaps where people tend to fish where the birds won't be quite as timid.

Of course as Lee said...a long lens helps too .

I'm not really sure if that was much help, but good luck in any case!
Peace,
Jim

I should have given that info up front: 300mm on tripod, 1/30 @ f/2.8, ISO 1250, about an hour before dawn.

If I make the SS faster then up goes the ISO and up goes the noise.
Your looking at a 50% crop. What else can I say?

I was thinking composition wise as he comes to the same place almost every day.

Well, from a compositional stand point...I'd still get in closer. Even in my situation where I can often get fairly close to these beautiful creatures, I find that 300mm if sometimes barely adequate. If you're shooting from across a lake (even a small one) then as you've already said about this shot, you end up cropping the image a great deal just to get something recognizable as a composition. The only thing I can really suggest in that particular regard is again either a longer lens or simply get closer to the bird...just be careful not to scare him off to the point that he stops coming around.

Next to that in regards to composition I also have to say to watch your foreground. This would have been an otherwise lovely shot with the reflection there but it looks as though there were leaves or something in the foreground that messed up the reflection. Getting those reflections like that makes for amazing shots...I wish I could do the same with the herons I'm shooting but being in a marina, there's always boats coming and going so the water is never really still enough for that kind of reflection.

The great thing about herons is that generally they don't move around a lot...I've seen them pretty much stand in the same place for hours on end, so using a tripod with a slow shutter speed isn't really a problem. I wouldn't really worry too much about trying to get a faster shutter speed as much as just getting in a little closer (either physically or with a longer lens or even a teleconverter).

Another thing I might suggest is -if possible- try shooting closer to dawn when there's a little more light. More light means you can use a lower ISO which means the image will be less grainy and you can crop it in a little more.

Ok...I'm not really sure if that helps much or not but good luck!
Peace,
Jim

Jim, will try to take your advice, thanks.