Great Blue Herons In Flight: This past week I went to the Viera Wetlands to photograph Great Blue Herons in flight. For the Tech Geeks - A Nikon D300S with a Nikon 70-200mm f-2.8 VR...

Adubin Loc: Indialantic, Florida

This past week I went to the Viera Wetlands to photograph Great Blue Herons in flight.

For the Tech Geeks -
A Nikon D300S with a Nikon 70-200mm f-2.8 VR lens and a 1.4X Nikon Teleconverter was used to capture all these images. I used Lightroom 3 to do all my post processing.

I would appreciate your feedback and critique on these photos.

Coming into nest

Ready for landing

Just a Flight photo

gregoryd45 Loc: Fakahatchee Strand

Adubin wrote:

This past week I went to the Viera Wetlands to photograph Great Blue Herons in flight.

For the Tech Geeks -
A Nikon D300S with a Nikon 70-200mm f-2.8 VR lens and a 1.4X Nikon Teleconverter was used to capture all these images. I used Lightroom 3 to do all my post processing.

I would appreciate your feedback and critique on these photos.

Great shots, Arnold

NikonJohn Loc: Indiana U.S.A.

Adubin wrote:

This past week I went to the Viera Wetlands to photograph Great Blue Herons in flight.

For the Tech Geeks -
A Nikon D300S with a Nikon 70-200mm f-2.8 VR lens and a 1.4X Nikon Teleconverter was used to capture all these images. I used Lightroom 3 to do all my post processing.

I would appreciate your feedback and critique on these photos.

Arnold,
I think they are all great. I especially like the second one. Lighting is good in all three and the framing is good also, especially the first one. The only think I don't care for is the bottom left corner in the first one. It looks like you were cropping something out of that corner by mirroring that part of the nest. The symmetry of it makes it look like one of those African masks, I can see the eyes nose and mouth, and now that I've seen it it keeps drawing my eye from an otherwise fantastic shot. You might want to fiddle with that corner some. Good shooting, keep it up! :thumbup:
John

Adubin Loc: Indialantic, Florida

Gregory, Thanks for your comment, Arnold

gregoryd45 wrote:

Adubin wrote:

This past week I went to the Viera Wetlands to photograph Great Blue Herons in flight.

For the Tech Geeks -
A Nikon D300S with a Nikon 70-200mm f-2.8 VR lens and a 1.4X Nikon Teleconverter was used to capture all these images. I used Lightroom 3 to do all my post processing.

I would appreciate your feedback and critique on these photos.

Great shots, Arnold

Shane T Loc: Central Florida

Beautiful Shots! I think I'm jealous.

Adubin Loc: Indialantic, Florida

Nikon John, Thank you very much for taking your time a really examining and critiquing my photos. I really appreciate your feedback. Arnold

NikonJohn wrote:

quote=Adubin This past week I went to the Viera W... (show quote)

Adubin Loc: Indialantic, Florida

Shane, Thank for your comments. Arnold

Shane T wrote:

Beautiful Shots! I think I'm jealous.

Swamp Gator Loc: Coastal South Carolina

Arnold these are all technically terrific, clear sharp focus and nice light and wing position etc.
I like #1 the best since it shows not just action but interaction.
The other two are very nice flight shots, and again are technically fine.

For myself I try to avoid shooting open blue sky flights.
Sometimes with birds like eagles and ospreys it can't be helped as they are often up high.
But for birds like GBHs which often fly low, it is generally more pleasing visually to capture them flying across some background which provides interest.
Trees, water, green marsh grass, brown marsh grass, anything the will provide some OOF background color will almost always look better then an open blue (or worse yet grey) sky.
Hope this makes sense.

Adubin Loc: Indialantic, Florida

Swamp Gator, Thank you very much for your comments. I will post GBH photo with some BG to see what you think of that one. Arnold

Swamp Gator wrote:

Arnold these are all technically terrific, clear s... (show quote)

GBH with BG

Adubin Loc: Indialantic, Florida

John, I fiddle with the photo a little. Do you like this one better? Arnold

NikonJohn wrote:

quote=Adubin This past week I went to the Viera W... (show quote)

Redo of the Original Photo I Posted on This Thread

NikonJohn Loc: Indiana U.S.A.

Adubin wrote:

John, I fiddle with the photo a little. Do you li... (show quote)

Yes! Looks much better to me. ;)
I also like the one you posted for Swamp Gator, great flight shot. Have a great week, :thumbup:
John

mollymolly Loc: In the heart of the Everglades.

These are absolutely fantastic!! All of them!!

Adubin Loc: Indialantic, Florida

Thanks, For your reply, Arnold

NikonJohn wrote:

quote=Adubin John, I fiddle with the photo a litt... (show quote)

Adubin Loc: Indialantic, Florida

Molly, Thank you very much for your compliments for these photos. Arnold

mollymolly wrote:

These are absolutely fantastic!! All of them!!

Swamp Gator Loc: Coastal South Carolina

Adubin wrote:

Swamp Gator, Thank you very much for your comments. I will post GBH photo with some BG to see what you think of that one. Arnold

Ok Arnold, now you are cookin'! That's the idea!
Not only do I feel that having some sort of background other then blue sky makes the image more visually appealing, it's also nice to see some of the environment the bird operates in.
Besides, everybody already knows what a blue sky looks like. So why not show some of the local area and habitat in the photo whenever possible? Make it different, make it stand out.