• 2
  • -1
Mike Young's picture

Heron shots, considered mono because of the birds colouring - cc welcome.

Trying to figure out if the background is too busy with lilies etc but kind of difficult to get the Heron and lose the background.

Log in or register to post comments
2 Comments

The reason you are having trouble "losing the background" is because it is not very far behind the Heron.
One of the most important ratios in wildlife and bird photography involves two different distances -
1: the distance from the camera to the subject
2: the distance from the subject to the background

I have seen it said that the subject-to-background distance needs to be 3 times greater than the camera-to-subject distance in order for the background to be sufficiently blurred for the subject to "pop".

Of course, no hard and fast rule such as "3 times longer" can possibly apply to every situation, or even most situations, because there are so many variables that such a rule does not take into consideration.

However, the 3x longer rule does get one thinking about the relative distances involved, and that gets you started on the right track when it comes to producing subject isolation, a.k.a. "pop".

One thing you can do is to get down at water level and shoot from that height - at, or lower than, the Heron's eyes. This will help to give you a more distant background. Of course, you will have to walk around the Heron in order to align it with a distant background that is far away. If there are tall reeds on one side of the Heron and a fair expanse of open water to the other side of the Heron, then of course you will want to shoot FROM the reeds so that you have a lot of empty space behind the Heron, which will give you the isolation that you are seeking.

Of course, shooting from the reeds, or whatever position is favorable, may be quite difficult, and could require the use of chest waders, a floating blind, canoe, kayak, etc. When people get those gorgeous bird images with wonderful backgrounds and a subject that humps off the page at you, they have often spent quite a bit of time and hard work figuring out how to get into position for such an image. This stuff isn't easy, and if you want great results it will usually involve many days afield and a lot of miscellaneous gear.

You could blur the background in post production or reduce brightness since heron is much lighter than background.