The Green Herons are about to migrate from my area in west Tennessee so I thought I’d share some recent photos I’ve taken of some at my neighborhood lake.
Any
Is this a composite: No
Canon 90D, Sigma 150-600mm C
ISO 640, f6.3, 1/1600s, hand held
ISO 640, f7.1, 1/2500s
It’s so sad when our favorite birds leave for their winter vacation! These are really nice action shots! The first one is my favorite as it’s a very unique position that you captured him in!
Nice flight shots. Ours don’t come here until late spring, early into summer. They come to nest and fledge their chicks, then they’re gone. Pretty much at the same time, we get the Least Bitterns which are my favorites to shoot.
I do notice that you have a significant color cast in all three images. This could be a result of how your color balance is set in your camera. For shooting wildlife, I generally set mine to Auto WB which generally neutralizes any casting issues. For emphasis only, I did tend to give a tad more saturation to the edited part but more so to show how much of a “green” color cast exists in your images. There are a number of ways to eliminate the casts in post.
Very nice series. Gotta love that green water background
Very pleasing series. Well composed with excellent detail and color balance. The wing positions are superb. Send a few Green Herons my way please. ( Although I have plenty of GBH, I have only seen 1 Green Heron and 1 Great Egret in the last 20 years…
Very cool series, Allen. I have never shot a Green Heron in flight. Must be a very challenging thing to do since they’re usually so fast. The background is definitely complementary to the birds. Excellent.
The third one is my favorite. I like the position of the wings and the heron shows up well from the BG…Jim
Love these to bits. Greenies are my favorites, but they’re so shy that I don’t have any good shots of them. I see Chris’s point about the color cast so had a go with one of the flight shots myself. It did seem rather warm and muddy in terms of color - I find that white balance is the first and best way to correct a lot of that so I added a Color Balance layer like this -
And lifted the mid-tones a little as well -
Hope you don’t mind. Such a terrific experience and opportunity. Color me green!
@Chris_Calohan @Kris_Smith , I don’t mind the reworks you did - thanks. Maybe I am blind but I do not see the green color cast in the original images other than the actual green areas which is most of the photo. On sunny days I prefer the warmer tones of sunny white balance - I quit shooting in auto white balance on sunny days a few years back. Maybe it’s just a matter of personal preference.
HI Allen
It must be nice to see Green Heron throughout the summer. I only manage two shots a one this year. The first shot just looks like early morning sun to me and the other two look fine.
Nice work.
Peter
