Green Heron
- Thread starter TitusvileSurfer
- Start date
TitusvileSurfer
New member
Thanks! 
Canon 40D and 70-200 f/2.8 IS
These are mostly 50%-75% crops
Canon 40D and 70-200 f/2.8 IS
These are mostly 50%-75% crops
IPT
Active member
Nice shots. I never even knew there was a Green Heron. I might crop the top of that last one a little more to get rid of the bright background folliage in the top of the frame. The rest of the background is perfect, simple and clean really showing off the bird. Are they a lot smaller that the other Herons?
TitusvileSurfer
New member
Good point on cropping the last one, I agree it would be an improvement!
The green herons are pretty small. Some are more of a gorgeous emerald green than others...this one actually being blue. Greens are fun to watch because they actually use tools to catch prey. For instance they might go dig up an earthworm...but not to eat it, no. They would throw it in the water as bait for fish! When the fish swarm to eat the worm, the heron goes in for the kill.
I watched this one for an hour or so but he didn't seem too hungry.
The green herons are pretty small. Some are more of a gorgeous emerald green than others...this one actually being blue. Greens are fun to watch because they actually use tools to catch prey. For instance they might go dig up an earthworm...but not to eat it, no. They would throw it in the water as bait for fish! When the fish swarm to eat the worm, the heron goes in for the kill.
I watched this one for an hour or so but he didn't seem too hungry.
TitusvileSurfer
New member
Yeah I noticed that too.
The full version looks tack sharp but somehow that was lost in translation from .CR2 to TIFF to JPEG. I guess it just comes down to using so many less pixels.
Reef Bass
colors and textures
Your usual stellar job TS. I particularly like #4 and its composition.
+1 for IPTs crop comment.
I like the green heron's tool usage. I recently saw a video where a small heron (don't know if it was a green one or not) was using a piece of bread to lure minnows within gobbling range. It would toss the bread on the surface of the water and wait for a few seconds for minnows to gather then snarf one up. If the bread drifted out of position or didn't attract minnows, the heron picked it up and placed it again. Fascinating.
+1 for IPTs crop comment.
I like the green heron's tool usage. I recently saw a video where a small heron (don't know if it was a green one or not) was using a piece of bread to lure minnows within gobbling range. It would toss the bread on the surface of the water and wait for a few seconds for minnows to gather then snarf one up. If the bread drifted out of position or didn't attract minnows, the heron picked it up and placed it again. Fascinating.
TitusvileSurfer
New member
Yeah that was probably a green...I think, not 100%, that they are the only heron which uses tools like that. I have heard of them using bread but haven't personally observed it. Mainly because there isn't any bread where I go!
TitusvileSurfer
New member
The 24-70 is an amazing lens all by itself. The 70-200 is an amazing lens all by itself. The two together...absolutely priceless, and you already have half of the puzzle!
TitusvileSurfer
New member
Thanks Dee!
I re-cropped the bottom image a few minutes ago...
redo
origional
I could crop further to the left, but the drain becomes particularly ugly and distracting right off scene.
I re-cropped the bottom image a few minutes ago...
redo
origional
I could crop further to the left, but the drain becomes particularly ugly and distracting right off scene.
TitusvileSurfer
New member
10'-15' I'm only using half the picture on a lot of these. I just cut away the rest to "zoom in" more. I also used a Canon 40D which has a 1.6x crop factor to begin with. A 400mm lens would have served me better. I want to get the Canon 500mm f/4 IS for this kind of stuff. I could get soooo many more "wow" images if I didn't have to stalk my prey so much. At first this bird was in a tree about 30' away. I had to wait motionless for over an hour before it became comfortable enough around me to get this close. The bird would fly from the tree to the rocks...stare at me...jump down to a closer rock...fly back to the tree...fly back to the rocks...jump down to an even closer rock...repeat repeat.
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ridinfast03
New member
Good looking shots man, my pond is swarming with Blue's already and man they are getting fat from all the fish already.
TitusvileSurfer
New member
All four versions of the 70-200 are extremely high quality. You can't go wrong with any of them!
