Sandhil Crane

[Michael Lloyd]

I struggled a little with which bird image from Bosque to post here first. I've got a couple that I really like. I guess we'll see what everyone thinks :)

I left it un-cropped on purpose. I am fairly certain that I will get some good suggestions for how to crop. My initial thought is to loose some of the clutter fore and aft and center the bird. Maybe 10 x 10... Thoughts?

On a side note- I really missed having my 1DMKIII on this trip. It started giving me ERR 99's intermittently and I couldn't risk missing a shot because of that. I sent it off the day before I left for Bosque :( The 1DsMKIII is NOT a good action camera. It's got it's pluses but if you "pull the trigger" twice you have to wait for the buffer to clear before you can shoot again. So... photographing birds in flight with this camera requires an increase in patience and good timing. Needless to say I missed a lot of shots :) It's also not very good at higher ISO. Even at mid range ISO in low light it leaves a lot to be desired.

1DsMKIII; Manual mode
600 f4L IS

1/320
f4
ISO 400

[Stu Bowie]

Comp wise, I would take a bit off the LHS, and at the bottom on the line of blue water. I would darken the BG to make the subject pop a bit more. Still well captured Michael.

[Alfred Forns]

Mike I would crop more into a rectangle, does enhance the movement. Would place the bird further back in the frame and give plenty of room up front !! btw would need to have the forward space in camera, added for illustrating.

Looks like you had good wind direction at the crane pools !!! Excellent posting my idea below !!

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Really like the flight pose and the repost that Alfred posted is excellent. I very much like the overall feeling of this image. Thanks for sharing Michael.

[Fabs Forns]

I like the repost also, I know what you mean about the 1d3s, but the are huge files, so it's only natural they take time to process.

[Tony Whitehead]

Al has illustrated just what I was thinking - works well to my eye.

[Michael Lloyd]

Thanks for the repost Al. I like it a lot. My image was full frame so there is no real estate to play with in front of the bird. I might be able to do something with it. I'll take a look and see what I can come up with.

Thanks Judy.

Fabs- yes they are big files (and that has it's upside). They aren't much bigger than the DsMKII files and it's quite a bit faster than the DsMKIII. I kept telling myself to swap the MKII to the 600 but I never found the time to do it. By the end of the trip I was in tune with the camera and it wasn't much of an issue.

[Dave Mills]

I like the backround on the repost but the beautiful light on the crane is lost...