A Heron and his evening meal

[ei5jf]

I was down by the River Suir, Clonmel in Co Tipperary and came across this chap waiting patiently for his evening meal to swim by. I did not have a tripod and as he was so still, I wanted to capture the movment in the water.

I had a 1DS Mk2 and a 100-400 - No ND filters. So I set ISO to 50 , shutter speed to a 40th of a sec and a small aperture. I really took pot luck on being able to hand hold at the 400mm end of the lens,, but seemed to have got away with it.
Comments and Critism welcome.
Andy Tipperary.

 

[ei5jf]

The point I was trying to make, is that a lot of credit goes to the wonderful Image Stabaliser in the 100-400 lens.. Amazing that it was able to produce a pretty sharp image at that speed 1/40th.. Good advert for the IS system by Canon....?

Andy

 

[Stranger]

nice shot, i like the water effect and that is great handheld!

i feel the center subject works here because of the water coming down, if only the bird backed up for you... too bad you doont speak heron.. good capture though

 

[ei5jf]

Thanks Stranger' for looking and comments.. I did actually think looking at the pic, that it was too central, and ideally there should be some Space that Heron is looking into ' . There was the problem, if I trimmed of behind the animal, I would have lost that lovely water falling down.. So guess I am stuck with this preview. I suppose it is a matter for each viewer. I did post this on another Photo site and some people commented that they liked the central positioning of the Bird. Maybe I should brush up on my Heron speak.. !
Thanks again.
Andy

 

[Antarctican]

I really like how you chose to capture the movement of the water...you did a good job on this one!

 

[ei5jf]

Many thanks for taking time to look and comment..
Andy

 

[Kyuss]

Nice shot man! I love shooting these birds as well. Right now I have my 70-300 but am very unsatisfied with my results. Even with fast shutter speeds and a lot of light, I am unable to capture real crisp photos, to my liking anyway.

I think it's probably a mix of the "cheap" G glass and no IS . I really want to get my hands on a 70-300 VR.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[Sweetsomedays]

Beautiful picture. Gotta love VR!

 

[Raymond J Barlow]

Nice shot!! Did you try any lower shutter speeds? I have been able to hand hold my 200-400 down to 1/15 sec, @ 400 mm, and get a shot.

 

[snownow]

Very well done, great! for being hand held at that shutter. Good Work.