Sandhill Crane - Bosque del Apache

[Dan Streiffert]

Shot during IPT #2
Canon 50D
Canon 500mm F/4.0 IS L
!/200 s. @ f/4.0 ISO 800

http://danstreiffert.smugmug.com/photos/434179252_HLwA8-XL.jpg

[Arthur Morris]

I like the BKGR and the blurred wingtips. Pretty sharp for 1/200 sec. but some additional sharpening of the face and a bit of work on the eye would make it apprear much sharper. Thanks again for joining us. Like the soft light too--there was not much of it when you made this image!

[Robert O'Toole]

Hi Dan,

Really like the colors in the BG and the wings up position with the bird back in the frame. Artie is right about the SS, usually 1/200 is not fast enough for real sharpness and not slow enough for a real blur but it works here!

I normally avoid that dark band in the hills behind the crane pools to avoid the dark BG tones.

You might try to lighten the image up a little with curves and maybe run NR on the BG. This would make it even more appealing.

Robert

[Dean Ingwersen]

Hi Dan,

Really like this a lot, particularly the pose and the position of the wing with the bit of movement in the tips. Agree with previous comments, especially Robert's suggestion to lighten it a little just to make it pop a little more. Great image with 1/200...that's not easy!!

[Dan Streiffert]

Thanks for the all of the critiques. I did some post processing on the eye, and used Neat Image for noise reduction on the background. The photo was very noisy, more than I would have expected at ISO 800, but this is probably due to the very low lighting.