Grey Heron

[John 2]

Just bought an adapter to allow my Nikon lenses to be mounted on my Fuji Xt-1. Went down to our local nature reserve yesterday to try it out with the Tamron 150-600mm. Mainly grey days at the moment but caught this in a brief break in the clouds. I also tried a letterbox format but finally settled for this on the basis that it conveys the space that was in fact there. C&C welcome as always.

Fuji XT-1 spot metered
Tamron 150-600 mm @ 500mm
1/1250th sec @f??? (manual lens doesn't register the aperture meta data)
ISO 1600 -.33 comp

[chauncey]

There's nothing wrong in shooting during those "gray days"...think of them as a giant soft box.
With this image...get a whole lot closer.

[Shadowman]

I like the color of the bird and the greenery, agree a much tighter shot would work well.

[John 2]

William/John, physically closer was just not possible. I was on the lake edge about 300yds - 400yds away. After that it got wet. As an image (as opposed to a natural history record), I quite liked the space. As I indicated though, this was the alternative I tried.

[bnnrcn]

I find the composition of your original better as seasparkles add to the scene , nice image

[JohnRostron]

I find the composition of your original better as seasparkles add to the scene , nice image

+1 to that.

John

[Ziggy]

The first one works for me John. I also like the seasparkles.

[deetheturk]

#1 for me John, lovely capture mate!

[IzzieK]

#1 for me too John, but I have one problem...make that two:

1) looking at your EXIF, despite that you said you used the 150-600mm Tamron, your data said your lens is 50mm...how did that one happened? I really do not understand that one...please do explain...

and #2...when I looked at the expanded view in Lightbox, there was that part at the bottom of the bird's beak where part of the water merges with it almost losing that part...I think that can easily be removed in pp to get that part to do a nice separation on that part. (Sorry mate..)

Otherwise, I like the overall crop and the composition and the rest of the what others said.

[John 2]

Thanks for the additional feedback all. The sparkle was certainly deliberate.

Izzie, Fuji designed the camera to take Leica M mount lenses via a Fuji adapter as well as their own and there is the ability to set the camera for whatever focal length that you might want to use. I'm not sure why this is unless some of the auto functions are retained. With purely manual lenses this ability has no function and so I ignore it. None the less, the meta data records whatever this option happens to be set to (50mm is I think the default). I must read the manual sometime to make sure my assumptions are correct.

P.S. yes they are.