Heron

[Barbara Ponder]

It's been overcast for the last 4 days making practicing with my new Canon 7D Mark II difficult. Decided to just suck it up and went out shooting. Ran into this guy. CC welcome and appreciated.

[revi]

Dare I suggest you try a session using ISO 1600 or 3200?

[Shadowman]

If you have Photoshop Elements or Photoshop, try the Curves "backlit" function, it might help.

[IzzieK]

I like the birdie shot, but what is it about the background having some noise? Just pondering...(pun intended...)

[ashcroft]

It's been overcast for the last 4 days making practicing with my new Canon 7D Mark II difficult. Decided to just suck it up and went out shooting.

Surprising you say that. Your EXIF indicates 1/400 f /16 ISO400 on a 300mm lens. What's wrong with that? I would have gone for f/8 or less at that distance. If you raise the exposure slightly (it is, I think, a tad low) and pull back the greens slightly in RAW it looks better still. We saw herons last week at some rapids in the UK. I was surprised how 'tame' they were. I managed to get within 10ft of one before he flew off a few meters to another rock. I suppose the tourists feed them!

[Barbara Ponder]

John, I don't have PS I do have OnOne but can't seem to get it to work with the new camera. Need to look into that.

[Barbara Ponder]

Izzie, Had problems with the noise on all my shots yesterday. After some great feedback on here I realized I might have unintentionally changed some settings. Still trying to learn the new camera and having some difficulties. I shall PONDER the situation and try again!

[NorthernFocus]

Nice set, Barbara. Overcast is often better (or at least easier) shooting conditions for a shot like this. The bird is nicely exposed in all three shots and that's a nice clean, contrasting BG. I like the first shot with the slight twist of the head and the third shot because it gives the birdie a bit of breathing room and includes more of that lovely smooth, colorful water. As others have said there is a bit of noise most noticeable in the BG. Surprising for that ISO and on that new gen camera body. Were these cropped significantly?

[Barbara Ponder]

Rob, I need to start from scratch on my settings my husband takes about mulligans on his golf game, I think I need to take one on my photos from yesterday, lol. The herons around here will let you get about that distance. We live near the ocean and bayous and are fortunate to have a variety of seabirds. When shooting yesterday at a local park/nature center. There was this heron, a smaller variety heron, Roseate spoonbill and a Snow egret all within 3 ft of each other. In the spring we have areas that will have hundreds of them nesting and it is amazing to watch. Until I started photographing them last year I disliked birds. I now find them fascinating.

[Barbara Ponder]

Dan, thank you. The cropping was not that drastic but I had to raise the exposure in PP a lot.

[NorthernFocus]

...Until I started photographing them last year I disliked birds. I now find them fascinating.

Interesting how our attitudes change when we take time to pay attention. I used to be an avid hunter, both birds and mammals. After so many hours observing wildlife through long lenses I don't think I could ever pull a trigger again.

Dan, thank you. The cropping was not that drastic but I had to raise the exposure in PP a lot.

That explains the noise. Early on I endeavored to keep ISO low even at the expense of under exposing a full stop or more. Through my own experience I learned that underexposure is THE worst cause of noise on a given camera sensor. There is a technical explanation for it which I won't bore you with. But being hard headed I still had to prove it to myself

[IzzieK]

Barbara, I remembered from some readings a while back, I couldn't find after (I should had kept the link, silly me!) about cloudy day photography. I googled and googled and now that you mentioned it, I was able to google the right phrase: photography on a cloudy day...and here is what I came up with, my favourite being the first one --

http://blog.creativelive.com/shoot-b...sunny-16-rule/

http://everydayaperture.com/sunny-16-and-beyond/

Hope this helps...

[bnnrcn]

Very nice shots A bit too noisy though .

[Barbara Ponder]

Izzie, thanks so much for the information!

[Barbara Ponder]

Thanks Binnur