Snow and Ross's geese

40D. 400f5.6L at f/11. iso 320. 1/1600s. fill flash.

Shot at hagerman wildlife refuge at TX-Ok border. This one's from last season. Need to go there soon as I've heard that they have started arriving.

All C&C welcome.

Some nice looking geese with a interesting variety of poses and behaviours. I wish the oof second line of geese legs were not in the frame, but I am not sure what you could have done with this. From the foreground I assume that you were low to the ground (which I like) and these background geese were on a raised bank. Perhaps a slightly higher perspective would have got a clean background without altering the apparent low angle too much.

Hey Kaustubh,
You have a nice variety and vg exposure here but I am leaning with Ben.....I would prefer this w/o the second row of legs and bodies. If this was more of the environs image/group.....wider may be the way to go but not sure what your circumstances were.

Thx guys. I had tried that crop but that one goose with the raised head is the issue there :-) Cutting that head into half did look odd....and with cropping it off completely...I felt the frame too tight at the top. Cropping is always a little tricky with these sort of images....getting 4 clean sides becomes a challenge.

Higher angle is something I should have explored...going against my natural instinct :-) Also, I should not have probably stopped down to f/11.

Thx a lot for the feedback.

I'm still in Snow Goose post-processing mode, so I really appreciate this one:)

I like how you composed the blue morph within the frame...well thought out. I agree with the boys about the second row. Perhaps a vertical with more of those upper geese included would have been an option?

Hi Kaustubh, love mass gatherings of wildlife/birds and this image has captured that for me. Nice low angle and good exposure sharpness.

Hi Kaus, good use of aperture, although a little more would have helped the geese on the edge at the back. Good exposure control, and Im sure these guys must have made a racket.

You could probably remove that poking out head and no one would know KD. :) I like the scene, even though at times like this it would be very difficult to get a pleasing comp due to the sheer number of animals all crowding together. I think you did well considering that. To me the dark plumage on the bird near the LRC anchors the comp nicely. Good stuff!