There may be something of a theme developing here (see yesterday’s post) as I’m still focused on the dark side of the camera, and once again these are shot at a high ISO (1600) with lots of negative exposure compensation. The main sequence is a heron which after staying in fairly open areas finally pitched up just in front of some trees that are adjacent to the pond. This provided the dark backdrop I was looking for. There was enough light coming in to bring out the heron’s colour, but exposing for the background would have washed everything out. Hence dialling down the compensation to around -2. I lifted the whites in processing these, and damped down small parts of the background with the burn tool.
That proved to be a fruitful corner of the pond. While I was watching the heron I noticed a moorhen going back and forth. Tucked away under the low branches and among the tree rots a pair of chicks were scrambling around. I had to squat down right at the edge of the pond, with branches pressing all around to get any clear line on the chicks, and even then they were mostly obscured by foliage. I got three usable shots of which this is the pick. Compensation on this is a modest -1 (anything more would have lost the detail on the bird).
Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 7D Mark II and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS Mark II lens.
Aurora J Stone
7 Aug 2015These are wonderful shots. Heron’s look incredibly prehistoric to me, always have, even before we knew they are so closely related to dinosaurs.
Words
7 Aug 2015Aurora, I agree the herons look prehistoric, but moorhen chicks are totally – and cutely – alien!
Andy
8 Aug 2015I like your personal pick too.
Words
9 Aug 2015Andy, thanks! I’m currently using that one as a desktop background.