Little Heron

Canon EOS 7D, EF 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x Extender II @ 700mm, AV Priority @ f/9 (1/640 sec), ISO 800, Exposure Compensation: +1/3, Handheld, JPG from RAW

There's an access route into the Taman Negara National Park along the Tahan River and, with good memories of the excellent photographic opportunities I had while in Sabah (Borneo) floating along the Kinabatangan River, I was eager to make the most of this opportunity, although it proved to be far more challenging – and all too frequently frustrating – as every few hundred meters there seemed to be another stretch of mini-whitewater rapids to get through, which made an already difficult situation of trying to hold my camera steady for a reasonable shot almost impossible much of the time.

The boat was of the very narrow long-tailed variety, which meant there were no seats to speak of and certainly no room for a tripod, but I could support my 500mm on my knees if I leaned far enough back, although of course this position left very little room to manoeuvre in, so between all that and the constant movement of the boat there were countless opportunities I missed of beautiful birds flying off before I even had a chance to zero in on them ;^.

Undeterred by my constant failures, I must have spent more than 10 hours over the course of two days on the river in the hope of getting at least a handful of decent shots of any of the three species of Kingfishers and a host of colouful birds I'd seen and constantly missed.

This first one I'm showing you, of a Little Heron posed to strike for it's meal, while perhaps not the sharpest of shots, I consider to have been one of my luckiest, as we'd just rounded another bend in the river and entered a new set of rapids and there the opportunity was! I had to swing my 500 off from my knees and over the side, try to zero in on the subject, and fire of a few while hoping for the best.

Anyhow, this is the one I was happiest with and I hope it holds some appeal for you too ;^)

PP: Cropped about 20% from the right and bottom edge to allow for better composition. Increased exposure, blurred out the BG to eliminate noise, and removed a distracting twig that was sticking up from behind the righthand side of the rock.

Happy as always to receive critique and comments, thanks in advance for viewing :^)

Kind regards,

Ashley