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Terry Nickel
02-04-2008, 11:30 AM
This is my first post here. From other comments I have read, I know I should have set the Whooping Cranes with more canvas in front of them. This photo is not cropped at all, and was taken on a somewhat foggy day (no sun at all) with a slow lens. I used a Canon XTi with a Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS lens at f/5.6 300mm 1/320s iso100. I'm fairly new to DSLRs, and am trying to learn. I'm also pretty much a newbie to Photoshop.

Nonda Surratt
02-04-2008, 04:30 PM
Welcome Terry!

Lucky you to get such a nice close shot of Whoopers!! I think one thing that would have really helped would have been to have your ISO around 400 to give you a bit more shutter speed, the cranes would have been a bit crisper I bet:-)

George DeCamp
02-04-2008, 08:37 PM
Hi Terry!

Welcome to BPN!!

Well already you are one up on me as I have yet to see a Whooping Crane in the wild.Nice you were able to see them and get close enough for this image.

Agree you need more room in front. Also it would be good to have the birds lower in the frame. Try to get some separation between the birds if you get another opportunity, best to see 2 full birds if you can rather than one overlapped by another.

Did you use a tripod here? Shooting at the speed you did with a 300mm lens is tough and you may get camera shake although you did pretty well here.

Keep them coming, I hope you stay with us and enjoy the site!!!

Judd Patterson
02-04-2008, 11:44 PM
Hey Terry, glad to have you on board. Beautiful birds, and a huge treat to see in the wild. I agree with the more room in front comment, and also would lighten this image. If it's a RAW file, you should be able to increase the exposure and simultaneously hold back the whites so that they don't get blown out...in particular the background just seems to dark here. Echoing Nonda, I would have increased my ISO to 200 or 400 to get a higher shutter speed. I tend to photograph wildlife at 400 most of the time as its a good balance of noise and shutter speed. See you around!

Terry Nickel
02-12-2008, 12:35 PM
Thanks for the input. I hate to admit it, but it didn't occur to me to switch to ISO400, instead of ISO100 -- and that is pretty basic. And ironically, I had both a monopod and tripod with me, and didn't use either one. Live and learn! Thanks again for the ideas -- I am learning a lot here that I didn't even know I didn't know, plus some reminders of some pretty obvious stuff!