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TITLE: Bittern standing in gap in reedbed
INFO: "Same day and I think same bird as previous images but a while later. Having spent over half an hour earlier on getting some images of the close Bittern while my relatives waited patiently in the hide (though they were also excited to have seen Bittern), I felt duty-bound to return to them and to continue our little tour of Blashford. By about half an hour before the 4.30pm 'closing time', the weather had turned quite cloudy and dull (and cold!) and my relatives had headed off to ready themselves for dinner out later, but I decided to rush back to Ivy North Hide on the off-chance that the Bittern might still be showing close in. Indeed, it was, but - unfortunately from a photography point of view - it was right in front of the hide, which meant shooting through the hated dark one-way windows and taking pot luck as to whether one gets a 'sweet spot' (if any) in the window glass or a horribly distorting bit. The light was very dull by now and that, combined with the two-stop light loss through the windows, meant that I was really struggling with ISO and shutter speed, but I decided to give it a go anyway - hand-holding the heavy lens was hard work but the VR (Vibration Reduction) system would help to reduce the shake of my quivering arms. The Bittern was not moving much so the relatively slow 1/60th sec shutter speed was ok when it stood still (which they are very good at!). Most of the shots I took were too distorted by the window glass but this image was just about rescue-able for web display, though quite a bit of post-capture work was needed - the tinted windows cause a blue colour cast and loss of contrast, and the high ISO needed some noise reduction. I've not had to crop in much which is just as well since the quality is still pretty iffy, though some judicious sharpening gives acceptable quality at this size web display for a nice full-length portrait shot." February 2012 (Ivy North Hide) TECH: Nikon D700, Nikkor 200-400mm f4 zoom lens at 380mm, ISO 3200, f4, 1/60 sec. VR on. Lens hand-held. Shot through the dark one-way window of hide. Cropped image about 75% of frame (from full-frame FX-format image). |
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