Couple shots of Blue Herons

[dylanstraub]

I shot these at Bombay Hook NWR in Delaware and while most didn't come out well these were my first raw shots. I must admit that shooting in this mode does give you more control over the color it could be time consuming for a lot of shots. Anyway, I was somewhat limited as my 100-300 zoom is a bit soft at the higher end. Not to mention that these Heron's are difficult to shoot in the best of conditions. They like to hide in the tall grass where they are somewhat invisible till they take off. So for C+C I want to know if I got the color right. If anyone has experience shooting this kind of wildlife I'd love some tips. Thanks for looking. Oh and if anyone can tell me how to save a copy in jpeg using Elements 8 I'd really appreciate it.

 

[Forkie]

The colour looks fine to me. The problem is the composition and that the bird is out of focus, which I'm sure you already know.

On another note; I find when shooting birds - rather than going to find them, watch them for a while and learn where they are landing and why, then you can sit quietly near the areas they like to land most and wait for them to come to you. Sometimes, you can be waiting for ages but if you enjoy birds, and the weather is nice, it can be very therapeutic! Although, at this time of year make sure you're not sitting next to any nests as this can cause the birds to abandon their eggs.

It's certainly a start, though. Bird photography is very rewarding when you get the shots you've been waiting for! Keep practicing.

 

[djacobox372]

I looked at the exif data of the first image, it says it was shot with a 300mm f5.6 lens using these settings:

1/400
F9
ISO 100

1/400 is not fast enough to freeze a bird in flight, you could have increased your shutter speed to 1/1600 by setting the iso to 400, or 1/3200 at iso:800

I typically shoot birds at 1/2000 or faster, as they tend to be very twitchy even when standing still, also their feathers have a tendency to flutter in the wind so getting a tack-sharp shot requires a very fast shutter speed.

 

[dylanstraub]

Thanks for your comments and insight. I did notice that the wings came in focus more so than the neck and head. Next time I go down to the refuge I'll remember to use the shutter priority instead of aperture. These guys seem to be fine when they're standing still but I'd rather capture them when they're in flight. The other problem is my lens which is not very sharp at 300 mm so I tried to sharpen the picture a bit but I'm still not comfortable with that tool so I don't know if I got it right. I can't wait to get down there and try again.

 

[Forkie]

It's not easy to keep the head in focus when following birds in flight. I've never managed to get anything smaller than a pigeon yet!

One thing I would suggest though is to make sure you're on "continuous focus", track it as early as possible to catch up to it's speed, keeping your focus point on the head as much as possible, then when it's getting close to where you want it, fire off a few shots by keeping your shutter button down rather than hitting it once, that way you'll have more chance that at least one of the shots will be in focus.

 

[djacobox372]

Thanks for your comments and insight. I did notice that the wings came in focus more so than the neck and head. Next time I go down to the refuge I'll remember to use the shutter priority instead of aperture. These guys seem to be fine when they're standing still but I'd rather capture them when they're in flight. The other problem is my lens which is not very sharp at 300 mm so I tried to sharpen the picture a bit but I'm still not comfortable with that tool so I don't know if I got it right. I can't wait to get down there and try again.

Shooting at F9 instead of F5.6 probably helped your sharpness and focus, you may want to shoot at F11 which will widen your DOF even more making focus easier--your lens is also likely sharper at F11.

The Canon XTI is pretty good at ISO 800, so I'd use that--you also might want to shoot in manual mode, as lighting conditions don't really change much outdoors and correctly exposing a bird against a bright sky is almost impossible for auto modes.

This shot would have likely worked a lot better at 1/2000 F11 ISO:800

You will get some noise due to the higher iso, but a little noise is a lot better then a blurry photo.