David
Element
Wildlife
Photography
and Digital
Video Images
_______________________ Birds 27 - Grey Herons 3

GREY HERON Ardea
cinerea
- Just occasionally
everything works in the favour of the photographer.
Capturing birds in flight through a telephoto lens is
extremely difficult at the best of times as the field of
view is very limited and it is important to focus
accurately on the head otherwise the final image will be
sub-standard. The reactions need to be very fast! Manual
focussing is actually more likely to succeed than
autofocus as it is hard to predict the direction of
flight and almost impossible to determine the correct
position of the fast moving birds head in the
viewfinder. As a 400mm manual lens was used this added
complication was avoided for this Grey Heron shot.
The fortunate aspects were the excellent light and the
chosen flight path at 90° from the point at which the
photographer was standing, meaning that the whole of the
body from the tip of the bill to the toes remained in
sharp focus as the bird took off. As the image has been
copied at a much lower resolution than the original some
of the clarity has been sacrificed in this on-line
reproduction.
Links to 'ARKive'
species accounts:
-> Birds 1
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-> Birds 3
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-> Birds 5
-> Birds 6
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-> Birds 8
-> Birds 9
-> Birds 10
-> Birds 11
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-> Birds 23
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-> Birds 26
-> Birds 27
-> Birds 28
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© David
Element.