A Great Egret catching an afternoon snack. Taken with my Olympus OM-D E-M5 and a 34 year old Canon FD 400mm ƒ4.5 manual focus lens.
Photo was taken from my kayak with camera mounted on a tripod. Watched this egret for well over an hour as he caught fish after fish. Wish I could have been a bit farther way to get his whole body in the reflection. One of those rare times when a bird photographer wished he had less lens.
[Jan. 28th, 2014 09:40:25 AM]
For all this commenting about seeing more. I was using a 400mm prime and had drifted really close to the bird as I was shooting. The only crop done to this photo was from straitening it. I wish I had gotten more. Had one sweet shot with wings fully extended (him looking right at me), but a lot of the top of one wing was cut off.
Not only was this a rare time a bird photographer wanted less lens, I wish I had a really good zoom. May have to look for one for the kayak shooting because you drift around so much and typically do not have time to change lenses (something I always get nervous about in the kayak).
[Jan. 28th, 2014 09:42:18 AM]
Neat I am honored to have you think my photo is from vawendy
[Jan. 29th, 2014 04:12:02 PM]
streetpigeon Thanks for the wonderful comment. You noticed everything I loved about the photo and one thing I did not notice before. I never noticed the fish was where the eye in the shadow should be. Now I love it even more. I am going to try and remove the wood, did not want to chance a rules violation on this one so it stayed.
[Feb. 2nd, 2014 02:14:59 PM]
When shooting wildlife I always shoot at the fastest FPS my camera will shoot. My current camera does 9 FPS. Shooting at a high FPS gives you the chance of catching the perfect shot.
Here is an example of why you need to shoot at a high FPS to get a photograph like this one and why shooting a single frame is almost impossible. This series was shot in one burst and I used every other frame from that burst. These birds are super fast when catching a fish and this series happens in right around 1 second. I have found that I need to shoot at a minimum of 1/800 to freeze action and even then you sometimes get motion blur (I try to shoot at 1/1000 or faster).
[Feb. 2nd, 2014 02:18:50 PM]
Keep forgetting to add. Yes the lens used is a 34 year old Canon FD manual focus lens. Shooting manual focus from a moving (you are constantly drifting or moving some on the water) kayak is a real challenge.
WOW Thanks everyone for votes and wonderful comments. I am so happy to have finished 4th in this challenge. This has made my week.
WOW was I shocked when I came back to check my photo for comments. Thanks again to the voters and the wonderful comments.
Statistics
Place: 3 out of 98 Avg (all users): 6.9719 Avg (commenters): 7.8889 Avg (participants): 6.7656 Avg (non-participants): 7.0877 Views since voting: 3140 Views during voting: 408 Votes: 178 Comments: 45 Favorites: 1 (view)
Haven't been around much, but had to weigh in on this gorgeous shot! Fantastic work! (Wish we had had the chance to shoot with you at the Houston GTG a couple of years ago!) So glad this ribboned!
Thank you so much. I can't remember why I was not able to make it.
Haven't been around much, but had to weigh in on this gorgeous shot! Fantastic work! (Wish we had had the chance to shoot with you at the Houston GTG a couple of years ago!) So glad this ribboned!
Beatabg Thank you, I am still trying to improve my nature photography. Gets better every time I go out.
trotterjay Thanks for the wonderful comment. With telephoto lenses (especially 300mm +) it is pretty much impossible to zone focus. The DOF is pretty small when using a lens like my 400mm, even stopped way down. I try to always shoot at ƒ8 (which is the sweet spot for this lens and gives more DOF), but will open up if needed. This photo I actually took at ƒ5.6 and I am starting think I can shoot at this aperture without worry of softness (but the CA is worse then at ƒ8). Not going to lie, manual focus is tough. I miss some shots because of it and get a number of blurry photos. I have gotten to where I have about a 50% keeper rate (maybe a little better) as far as focus goes, lower when you take composition into account but you would have that problem with autofocus. I pretty much set up on an animal and continually adjust focus as I wait for the action. I can tell when a bird (the ones I photograph a lot) is about to strike by its body language. When I see the sign I hit the shutter button.
Here is a link to my Flickr gallery of wildlife photos, all taken with a manual focus lens. Wildlife Photos
As a beginning wildlife photographer you have no idea how much I love this photo. You got a 10 from me only because they wouldn't let me score it any higher. To do this in manual focus blows my mind. I don't think you could even effectively zone focus when shooting birds. You are the master.
Bear_Music It is a fine piece of glass, I love using old manual focus lenses on my digital bodies. It can suffer badly from CA tho.
vawendy Thanks, I am amazed sometimes on what I am able to capture using old manual focus lenses. Lose some shots but the satisfaction when you nail the shot is awesome.
Wonderful, wonderful image. I don't think bird photography offers anything better. The pose is elegant and sculptural, graceful and energetic. Not only is the shadow cast on its own wing terrific, the real fish is held close to where the eye of the shadow would appear. Also enhancing the photo are the ripples, droplets and reflection. The wood on the right -- and hey, things are where they are -- is the only distraction.
Ah Wendy for sure, lovely sharp shot. Just wondering if you feel as uncomfortable as me as to how close the wings are to the edge of the frame, probably unavoidable, I guess whilst you sifted through all your images and then deciding this was the best, I know we do that all the time. Still having said that I'm sure it will so well for you. 8
Nice photo, but for my taste I feel the framing is a bit off, too little space above the bird and too much reflection, my eye actually wanders more towards the reflection than the actual bird. Definately above average though!
Sushi
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