Day 6: Project 365: Calm

Great Blue Heron

Today's 365 project was, "Calm". I drove around for some time before I found just the perfect shot. There was one other I liked (below), but I think this one expresses calmness a bit more than the other. I like how he's just wading in the calm waters.

If he had been eating, or trying to find breakfast, this would never have worked. The Great Blue Heron just stood there in one spot for long enough for me to get my camera out of the car, set the exposure and shoot away. As a matter of fact, I was able to walk around, trying different compositions for about 10 minutes and he never moved.

Of course, I'm still having issues with the square format that Instagram uses, but I left enough room around this so it worked even with their crop.

This scene was my second choice. I thought today would be a good day to try out my 10X Neutral Density filter, but it was so bright out, even with the 10X, I couldn't get the shutter speed down enough to completely blur the water. It's too bad I didn't bring my Polarizer filter, which would have added an extra 2 stops. As it is, the longest exposure I could get was 1/20 of a second at F22 and ISO 100. This was my first time using a 10X Neutral Density filter and what it taught me is that it still has to be earlier or later in the day to try it. I'll be doing a lot more experimenting with it in the future.