Little Blue Heron preening at Shark Valley, Everglades NP

Right place at the right time, and ready. That is the secret to great wildlife photography…or great photography of any kind. Of course the secret to wildlife photography sanity is that you just can’t count (or obsess over) the misses…those times when you were in the right place at the right time, and not ready 🙂 In the field you will miss as often…some days (some weeks, some months, some years) way more often…than you hit. You have to celebrate every hit and forget every miss.

There were lots of Little Blue Herons along the water course that lines West Road at Shark Valley in Everglades National Park…it was inevitable (well, highly probably, give the numbers) that I would have my camera on one when it decided to preen. Auto focus managed this very well…better than I could have using manual. Even so, I was in Shutter Preferred and at 1/2000th of a second…way faster than I needed to be…and that pushed the ISO way up…which limits the quality of the photo…still…I count it a hit. And so the image gets made.

Sony HX400V at 504mm equivalent field of view (the bird was close!). 1/2000th @ ISO 2000 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.