![\"great-blue-heron-1427-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/great-blue-heron-1427-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nLast month while photographing birds on the water at Bear River MBR I’d get the occasional and unexpected Great Blue Heron fly-by. I was able to get some\u00a0shots I like reasonably well\u00a0so I figured it was time to post some of them.<\/p>\n
These images in progression\u00a0include decreasing amounts of habitat in the frame.<\/p>\n
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1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n These were nearly always grab shots so\u00a0I didn’t have (or take) the time to adjust camera settings for the varying brightness of the backgrounds. As a result (as you’ll see below) my shutter speed varied wildly since I shoot in aperture priority. Here the setting is the marsh at bottom and mountains up top so my shutter speed was appropriate for the situation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n But when the setting and background was mostly brighter blue sky my shutter speed shot up accordingly.\u00a0When cropping this image I placed the heron higher in the frame than I would normally in order to include more of the vegetation at bottom.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/6400, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, canvas added for composition, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n When the background was even brighter my SS shot up into the “hummingbird in flight” range. I’d prefer more appropriate settings but I have enough depth of field to get both wingtips sharp and noise isn’t a significant problem so I see it mostly as a non-issue. Besides, at these long focal lengths (effectively 1120mm) high shutter speeds are always welcome for sharpness, especially when hand-holding that huge lens.<\/p>\n My preferred subjects for these sessions at Bear River were nearly always birds on the water and since their behaviors are unpredictable and fast it was my preference to have my settings appropriate for\u00a0photographing them.<\/p>\n These herons in flight\u00a0are simply a bonus.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last month while photographing birds on the water at Bear River MBR I’d get the occasional and unexpected Great Blue Heron fly-by.<\/p>\n![\"great-blue-heron-9612b-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/great-blue-heron-9612b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"great-blue-heron-9531-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/great-blue-heron-9531-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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