Greylag Geese, Inner Mongolia, China

[Craig Brelsford]

Greylag geese take flight near sunset at the Hongshankou Reservoir in Inner Mongolia. I edited this picture only slightly; it's cropped at 100 percent. I just completed an eight-day trip to Lake Wuliangsu and areas near that important northern Chinese wetland.

Device: Nikon D300
Lens: VR 600mm F/4G
Focal length: 850mm
VR: OFF
Aperture: F/7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1250s
Exposure Mode: Aperture Priority
Exposure Comp.: -0.7EV
Metering: Center-Weighted
ISO Sensitivity: ISO 200

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Craig, Interesting image. What do you mean by a 100% crop?

I love 6 of the 7 wing positions. Losing the top/front bird in the right group of three would be just fine with me. EXP and SH look good. The merge with the horizon line is mildly problematic.

[Eric Diller]

Nice capture on the entire group! Tough when you have so many birds in the frame....you did well!

I am curious too...what does 100% crop mean?

[Craig Brelsford]

Hello and thanks for the comments. "100% crop" means that I didn't crop out any part of the photo. As far as cutting is concerned, the shot is 100% as my camera captured it. Is there another way to express my meaning?

[Jeff Dyck]

Craig - I'm not sure if this is proper, but when I leave an image uncropped, straight out of the camera I refer to it as "full frame". When I say "100% crop" I usually mean that I cropped the image down to display a group of actual pixels (usually to show some detail clearly on the web) - i.e. no re-sampling / resizing of the original - just lots of cropping.

[Arthur Morris]

Yup. Jeff has got it. "You can say this is full frame" or "this is the complete original." Though I am still not sure what a 100% crop is :)

[Craig Brelsford]

OK, thanks for the lesson! "Full frame." Got it.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I agree full-frame is the ideal term. 100% crop would be as if you are viewing an image at 100% magnification in PS, and cropped to show just that area of the image (hope that makes sense). Overall very nice, and I agree with Artie's comments. You could also sharpen more for web.

[Craig Brelsford]

Definitely makes sense, Daniel. I got my terms mixed up. Thanks.