Cormorant Pose

[Rudi van den Heever]

Image taken at Mankwe hide in the Pilanesberg Game Reserve, South Africa.

Equipment: Canon 7D and 500mm F4 L lens
Settings: 1/1600s at F5.6 and ISO 1000

[Mat Bingham]

I think thos photo is fantstic. Lighting is good.Like the background and the head on shot adds to the shot.

[Frank Schauf]

Very nice flight pose and bg colours.

[gail bisson]

Truly outstanding. It is so hard to get a tack sharp head as the bird flies towards you. I am impressed!! Love the " look down the barrel" and the layered BG. Light, wingspread make this a 10 out of 10 from me. Congrats on a great shot,
Gail

[Yves Guillot]

What a nice flight shot! ...and a SUPERB BG!!! Congrats!

[Vikram Agrawal]

wow wow wow. totally love this, killer bg and killer subject.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Wow, love the pose and what a wondeful background! I do think there is a bit much room below. A very striking image.

[Joe Senzatimore]

A different pose for a bird we see often. This is a killer image , IMHO. Well done.

[Carmelo Cannova]

Terrific shot and what a BG !! Good shooting.

[Arthur Morris]

I've said for quite some time that 7D AF works great with incoming stuff. This one is superb. Can you post a jpeg that represents the full frame original capture and let us know what AF Area Selection Mode you were using. I like all that blue at the bottom and the somewhat OOTB composition. And of course the light and the sharpness as well.

[Robert Holguin]

Wow!! Excellent shot. Love the head on shot, beautiful background, great light, and exposed very well.
Well done.

[Tom Rambaut]

Great strait down the lens look - very interested as to how you had your AF set up. Great eyes. Nice BG.

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

Wow, love the sharpness, the detials in black and white, the down the barrel look with good pose and beautiful background. Agree about a little crop off the bottom.

[Rudi van den Heever]

Thanks for all the positive feedback eveyone - It is really appreciated!!

The 7D's AF is set up as follows in C.FnIII:
1. Al Servo tracking sensitivity - Slow
2. Al Servo 1st/2nd image priority - 0: AF priority/Tracking Priority
3. Al Servo AF tracking method - 1: Continuous AF track priority
4. Lens driv when AF impossible - 1: Focus search off
5. AF Microadjustment - 0: Disable
6. AF area selection mode - Single point AF
7. Maual AF pt. selec. pattern - 1: Continuous
8. - 10. according to personal choice.

I only use the centre AF point, Aperture Priority and in this instance matrix metering mode.

Here is the original full frame JPEG: Only some local adjustments in LR3, no noise reduction or other adjustments in CS5 (save for sharpening) and a straight conversion from RAW to JPEG...

[arash_hazeghi]

excellent pose details and light a very dynamic image well done

[Tin Man Lee]

Truly outstanding image. Love the symmetric and grand pose, amazing light, and superb details. Really good to see the good performance of 7D at ISO 1000. Very pleasing image!

[Morkel Erasmus]

Your best flight photo by far...ever...top stuff Rudi!
The 7D in the right hands can produce some magic images...:cheers:

[Rudi van den Heever]

Thanks Arash, Tin man and Morkel!:bg3: