Last week, I happened upon a blue heron. He was downstream of me, below several small falls. Due to the noise of the falls, I don't believe he heard me. If he did hear me, he ignored me. He was in the sun. I'm thinking to myself that finally I will capture a decent picture of a blue heron. You see, all previous attempt were made when the bird was too far away, the bird was in the shade, or some other problem. Now was my chance to get some good shots.
I was able to get within 30-40 ft. of the heron. I had my E330 with the 70-300mm lens. I was sure that with the heron in the sun I could get the shutter speed up to get a decent shot, since I didn't have a tripod or monopod.
So I shot away. I think for the 30 minutes I was one with the bird I took 125 shots. Surely out of that lot I would have some decent results.
At home, I began to review my photos. The first photos were from the greatest distance away. They were not as sharp as I wanted. As I progressed through the photos, I was getting closer to the subject. I had mostly focused on the eye of the heron for the shots. Some shots were miserably out of focus. Some were ok. But none were tack sharp. Even the ones that looked the best didn't look that good as you zoomed in.
What I have learned is that the tact sharp closeup blue heron photo is still eluding me. The last opportunity did result in the best photos yet, but still not the best they could be. I think the lack of sharpness was due to camera shake. For really sharp photos I am going to have to have the camera on a tripod, use mirror lock up, and remote or timed shutter release.It will be difficult to have this all come together with one bird. I could sit at this location all day and the heron might not show up.
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