Blue Heron Blur in Autumn

This is a blue heron, intentionally blurred, (slowly panned) coming in

for a water landing. Taken at f8, 1/45th of a second in fading light.

Your ratings and critiques are invited and most welcome for this

unusual photo. Please try to judge it on its artistic merits and not

by traditional 'snapshot' 'pinpoint sharp standards. If you rate

harshly or very critically, please submit a helpful and constructive

comment/Please share your superior knowledge to help improve my

photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

Ok, since you took the time to write that long intro, I'll tell you why I rated it 5/2. First, the left wing is cut off. Second, there is no interesting pattern to the blur except for maybe the upper part of the left wing. I like the rest of your portfolio, though.

... oniric & fluid...

Hi

No problem with any rating you give such a shot as long as it's honest. This is one of those 'grab shots' taken with whatever presets the camera had one it -- in this case, stopped down for depth of field when a blue heron came flying by from a distance backdropped by some autumnal trees, and although the original looked a little 'washed out' it was quite interesting and auto levels and/or auto contrast truly brought them out, and I didn't even bother converting to sRGB from Adobe which is my preferred color space, so you can imagine the colors in sRGB color space -- they're amazingly radiant.

 

Yes, the wing is cut off, and I'd also prefer it not be -- I tend to crop everything rather tightly in the camera, even flying herons (or egrets, if you will), and this is no exception, even if they sneak up on me like this one did, at the last moment, since I use almost exclusively zoom lenses. I'm one for almost never cropping a capture, as a view of the proportions of my captures will reveal. (A look will reveal all are almost entirely the same proportions, and they're not 'preset' or 'scaled down' to a proportion after being cropped -- they're full frame. At the same time, I'm not afraid to crop if necessary. A distracting element is something that I am not afraid to crop away -- it's just that I try to see that before I snap the shutter, and have enough experience now (and almost always did) to avoid having to use the crop tool; a very lucky occurrence for me.

 

So, any rating that's honest is fine with me. I regarded this as a 'found shot' -- one that is outside any boundaries of anything I've ever shot before, and that widens my accomplishments and talents as a photographer -- in effect, I think I could do it again, and better, and your critique helps.

 

That's the good effect of such critiques, especially with a well thought out rating, instead of just hitting a couple of buttons. Bravo for thinking it through.

 

Come again and visit my photos from time to time; you're welcome here.

 

John (Crosley)

John, I love the movement, the sense of time that you have captured. It is made most unusual by the autumn colors. I would suggest looking at the image cropped in tightly from both the right and the bottom. IMO, that gives the bird a better placement inside the frame. More importantly it eliminates the bright areas below and behind the bird that draw the eye away from the bird without loosing any of the excitement of the image.

I learned a new word 'oniric' meaning dreamlike (not the biological meaning I presume) and it also fits with your second word, 'fluid' -- I am a richer man for reading your short, honorific critique.

 

Thank you for the kind words, and for teaching me something.

 

I agree entirely with your view.

 

I also felt the same, and had no trouble posting this unusual photo once I came upon it and post-processed it by the simple method of changing its contrast/levels -- that's all. It actually qualifies as unmanipulated, since those two things don't amount to manipulation and 'sharpening' -- if I even did that at all, can't possibly be considered 'manipulation' or any digital photo could not be considered for the category 'unmanipulated' since every digital camera, and every film photo processing machine automatically 'sharpens' captures, whether the photographer knows about it or not.

 

Thanks again. You're always welcome to put in a few short (or long) words here.

 

John (Crosley)

Notice, if you will, how a long (1/45th sec at telephoto distance is believed to be the shutter speed, though it may be slower, the EXIF info is unclear), shutter speed coupled with a dramatically contrasted subject reveals the mostly 'white' wing of a blue heron - egret displays the pattern of the rotational forces exerted by the bird's right wing during it's 'beat' or 'stroke' during its turn away from the camera, (it's going from right to left, in case you can't tell).

 

This photo may tell more than many 'wind tunnel photos' about the direction and forces of this bird's wing stroke (beat) than one would expect, and one easily could miss that if one were only casually looking at this photo, looking only for evidence of photographic niceties (or things to critique).

 

See how the bird's wing has a rotational force attached to it on the right; possibly it is related to 'stalling' the right side and causing the bird to turn to the right -- all something a bird would do naturally and have no conscious thought of doing -- after all flying comes naturally to even the youngest birds after just a few months when mom shoves them out of the nest, or they even just fall.

 

I've even learned something (I think), by looking carefully at this photo, even after it was posted. In fact, I often learn a great deal about my own captures during the critique process, which I find most valuable, not only about things photographic but also about other thigns including science, philosophy, philatelic (on occasion), political, sociological, economic, etc., so if you are new to these pages, feel free to weigh in -- few subjects are taboo, and it hardly hurts if you write something cogent, to start a dialog, so long as it relates to the photo, something that relates to a subject started by the discussion raised by the photo, or somehow in one way or another, on or off topic, that relates to photography or events depicted here (or elsewhere) in even the most general way, so long as it's original and posted honestly.

 

There's no strict 'monitoring' here in these 'comments' which are well known as a place for free discourse.

 

Anyone know anything about 'wind tunnels' or 'bird wing beats' for instance and 'stalling to turn' as I've written about, for instance, or perhaps the use of panning and blurring as I've used here and ideal shuttter speeds? This was at 130mm actual focal length multiplied by a focal length multiplier of 150% on my D200 for a much longer effective focal length.

 

Also on point is the worth of having a camera at the ready (although here I was caught 'flat-footed' with my camera set at f8 in the early evening, allowing for only the longest shutter speed, forcing a 'blur' shot).

 

At least I learned something if I ever were 'forced' to think through a blur shot -- they can be most attractive, which is why I have continued to write about the subject.

 

John (Crosley)

I can't envision the crop you suggest. Maybe you could take a moment and work one up and post it so I can look at it?

 

I'd be most thankful.

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

John, this is pretty much what I had in mind. IMO, it give the bird more space in front to move into, makes a nice diagonal flow and the eliminates three scattered light areas below and to the right of the bird which to me distract from the bird.

I won't be cropping my photo (as I seldom crop except to 'save' a photo) but you have made a fine contribution.

 

Your crop is quite worthy and is a new photo unto its own.

 

I'd have been proud if I'd just have taken that photo (as you cropped it) and nothing more, but then again, cropping gets a guy into trouble if he shoots as much as I do; too many decisions and I shoot enough I throw away enough decent photos to fill five photographers' portfolios (maybe some 6/6s and 7/7s that others would recognize that I just don't because I'm myopic, and I don't have anyone talented to 'second-guess' me. Pity.

 

That's the problem with a 'virtual' club such as Photo.net where one has to make the editorial decisions by oneself before posting and then one gets critiques based only on that.

 

I would, if I got sick for a year, spend an entire year just going through my past captures and making folders and posting workups of some really good photos that have been passed by -- I tend to choose one photo from each shooting - maybe two sometimes and the rest never get seen again, though the best may go unrecognized since I'm sometimes very shortsighted.

 

Your able crop is just that case in point.

 

I stick to the basics -- posting mostly full-frame photos (unless a crop is needed to tell a story or save a stunner), because in part there are just so many photos -- a terabyte worth in a year and a half, with management problems that go with that.

 

And really not a decent browser to view them with that will get them to editing fast enough; suggestions welcome for a browser, edit combination that'll open photos fast enough from giant multi-gigabyte files, and then get the photos into an able photo editing program such as my preferred Photoshop CS2 full version promptly.

 

I know the Photoshop Browser opens files plenty fast -- it's the speed king in my view -- but it has visibility problems, while Photoshop Elements 5.0 also opens 'em fast, but then it jams when it sends 'em over to Photoshop CS2 and is very time-consuming, with lots of menus that I don't want permanently to close (turn off), as they're important reminders to me.

 

Such hassles. I liked it when I just took my film to Costco and came back in an hour or next day and saw what I shot and no improvements were possible; the Noritsu processors they used turned out stunning results from film that were hard to improve on. One could take photos AND do other things. With numerique (French for digital) one can take photos digitally AND process them digitally and not have any other life.

 

And, as I do, own over 25 hard drives.

 

Gary, as I said, it's a highly worthy effort; thanks for acceding to my request; I didn't see that one at all.

 

(Browser/editor combination suggestions welcome, but the best -- Nikon as a browser -- really the best browser, has one of the worst editing programs since it depends so much on 'curves' which cannot be easily replicated and thus are way too intuitive and useless for consistent output of the same photo, unless one saves a master file of that photo in large format and does not ever hope to do the same edit again.)

 

(sigh)

 

Thanks Gary.

 

It's nice; and far nicer than I imagined it would have been. Very good job.

 

John (Crosley)

Hello Mr John . Interesting your composition .

There is a brief story about this.

 

I was in Moss Landing, California where the nor dormant former mouth of the Salinas River once emptied into the Pacific Ocean. It left a slough that is shallow and tidal. It is filled with so many birds that travel guru Arthur Frommer called it one of the ten most worthwhile places to visit in California, yet even nearby residents hardly know it exists, or why it should be famous.

 

It has HUGE populations of almost every kind of bird, but the very long tidal, salt water slough is so shallow that conventional boats have a difficult time navigating, so there is one pontoon boat for tourists and it is expensive, (but well worth the trip).

 

But this bird was not in the slough itself, but near docks where fishing boats moor, and as such there also was a background of fall-colored trees -- something lacking along the slough. I had almost no notice of the bird's arrival -- they almost are never seen at this place.

 

So, whatever the settings on my camera, I just pointed and shot.

 

They were wrong for a 'sharp shot', but somehow it seemed to work out, because the large aperture called for a longer shutter speed, and the effect was a pleasing blur.

 

I would have hoped to capture the whole bird within the frame,but hey, life is not always perfect, and I was very lucky to even get a viewable capture at all.

 

I hope it pleased you.

 

It is one of those nice surprises that we photographers get from time to time.

 

Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

 

John (Crosley)