Feathered Friends in Florida
I haven't posted to the group in months. Been watching, but been way too busy with the move, work changes, and personal stuff to post much. Finally got a little time to get out today and really enjoyed getting to spend time on my favorite hobby.
This is a Great Blue Heron. I was able to catch this shot in a nearby golf course pond. I've spotted it there twice this week while driving by, and today I just happened to be driving out to the more wild places to take some photos and it was just by sheer luck there again. I haven't been out for wildlife photos for several months and this was a fantastic way to get back in. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed taking them.
They are majestic birds, quite large at over 3 feet tall. Here in Florida, there is a distinct subspecies of Great White Heron, along with some individuals like this one which have intermediate plumage. This has a grayish body with mostly white head and neck. They are called "Wurdemann's Heron".
I believe this could be one of those subspecies or close to it, but feel free to correct me if wrong, I'm still learning.
All photos original work by the author of this post.
Sony A7 R IV 200-600mm lens (shot at 600)
Enjoy!
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We have one of these that stops by to visit and snack on some fish in our pond. @pooky-jax yells at it. 😂 She loves her fishy fish.
I almost caught this one snagging a fish.. Just caught the splash on the camera. They are fast when they strike!
So which is your hobby? Watching birds or taking photos? :) Nice shots by the way.
Definitely don't place myself into the official birdwatcher category, but I do like taking photos of them. Went out again today and took several more birds and got some up close alligator shots as well! Will be posting some later this week once I pull off the camera.
Looking forward to it!
Blue Herons are beautiful birds. I used to have Koi fish in my little pond but they came and ate them all. lol🤪
Bummer for your fish, it's amazing how fast they strike when they stretch that neck.
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You nailed the focus on those shots, I always get way to much camera shake at those focal lengths. did you use a tripod?
Great catch. I've seen many people complain about these long lenses not being sharp or able to focus properly. The main reason is just as you say, it's actually much more difficult to hole these long focal lenses steady, even at fast shutter speeds than the shorter lenses. They are also heavy compared to the shorter ones, that makes it even more difficult to hold for any period of time, like I needed to capture these shots.
I normally use a monopod when doing wildlife photo's just because it's far lighter and easier to carry than a big tripod yet provides that much needed stability and fatigue reduction.
For these I didn't pull the mono out of the car, and instead leaned against a nearby tree for extra stability and used the built in image stabilization.
I didn't use it on these, but post-processing Topaz Sharpen tool and others can also work wonders to help correct some of that shake focus. These are all straight off camera with no post processing and actually just a copy/paste from the full resolution image to reduce the size for posting (I was feeling lazy)..
Yes most people have to learn the hard way when their shots don’t come out great.
Personally I have a nice collection of primes, small in size and light weight and good aperture settings. My favorite for wildlife work is my 135mm prime on my canon 5d mkiii, big old school camera but it fits my hand perfectly.
Look forward to seeing more of your work.
Agree the primes are very nice. My style is more suited to the flexibility of the zooms. Even then I still need three different sizes, or at least two with the 1.4x adapters.
I don't know if I'm wrong, it seems like the "lens hood" is missing, it seems like a lot of sun in the image or some filter! I imagine it was very far away
No lens hood or filter and no post-processing. Definitely a bright sunny day with lots of reflections off the water. Probably 50 yards or so was closest I could get without spooking it.