Hi
I was out looking at birds near a lake yesterday, with my ZR ED 8x43's.
I came accross a green-backed heron on the shore and in somewhat dim light.
The supercillum on this bird looked to be almost flourescent green in color and it appeared to have purplish/burgundy sides.
I did not get a picture, but in looking at some online, it seems common that the supercillum is really yellow and the sides are brownish.
So, my question is...
Are the color differences due to the lighting or would a better set of bins have resolved this better?
Or could this bird's colors be that off?
In bright light, the reds, browns, etc. of other birds were quite accurate.
As I stated above, the lighting on this bird was less than ideal, but I managed to sneek up to within 25 feet of it.
Just curious
Thanks
Richard
[QUOTE=rjwims;1440650]
The supercillum on this bird looked to be almost flourescent green in color and it appeared to have purplish/burgundy sides.[/QUOTE]
Were you possibly wearing polarized sun-glasses? If so, next time you experience a color oddity, tilt your head 45 degrees and see if the colors change. I sometimes get an electric blue off brightly-lit foliage with my Swaros.
I was doing some waterfowl watching the other day in dim light on a really cloudy day. When you get a flat gray day which tends to reflect flat gray off of the water, colors can do some weird things. In my instance, it was almost like the birds had turned into black, gray, and white silhouettes. Mallards and Northern Shoveler had black heads, and Green Wing Teal had pretty invisible green cheek patches, and Cinnamon Teal were simply little black ducks. Pintails and Bald Eagles were the only things that showed up real well.
The ZEN ED showed the best color of anything I had with me, and showed colors as well as anything that the members of a birding tour group that stopped at the same vantage point as I did. There was a Swaro 8.5 EL that was no better than the ZEN ED and a Zeiss FL that was perhaps a bit better. So sometimes, bad light can pretty well trump even really top optics.