Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Purple Herons

Last weekend I went to the Purple Herons for the first time this year. They are back since about 2 weeks and they are starting to build there nest in the next weeks.
Compared to last year I found the conditions this year a little more difficult. The trees in front of the reed field have become really big and there are only 2-3 good spots left to photograph them. As it they just arrived and some are still arriving in this area they were not that active, but I'm sure that is gonna change in the next weeks.







Even with my 500mm + 1.4x and 1D MarkIIn I was still too far away. I only good 2 or 3 really good chances, where the herons came quite close. I also tried th 1.7x but the Autofocus had some difficulities.
In the end, when the light got a little less, I tried the combination of my Sigma 500/4.5 the 1.4x and the 1.7x Converter to great some flight shots with slow shutter speeds. As sharpness doesn't really matter with this kind of shots, i tried to get as close as I could and with the 1.4x and the 1.7x I got the Herons good in the frame. Surprisingly the Autofocus worked really well and I had no big problems following the birds in flight. I will definelty use this combination more often for this kind of shots.


I have planned to go there again this weekend I hope that the weather will stay as nice as it has been here in the Netherlands the las 2 weeks. :-)

Sebastian Erras
Wildlife Photography Sebastian Erras
www.naturfoto-erras.de

1 Comments:

avdstelt said...

Nice pics from the Purpleheron.

I was driving by last weekend (visiting some family in Ameide) and saw you standing on the side of the road.

Hope to go there this weekend to make some shots.

Greetings Arjan

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