Red-Billed Quelea Flock

[Morkel Erasmus]

I used a slow shutter speed and panning to convey the ebb-and-flow of these massive flocks of birds.
Photo taken in the Kalahari desert, South Africa.

Techs:
Nikon D3s with Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II
f7.1 @ 1/200 SS @ ISO-200
Cropped top and bottom (empty space)

[Nico Steenberg]

I like the sense of movement Morkel. Nice use of the pano crop ! Well captured

I believe that you are keeping well ?

[Troy Lim]

Love the feel of movement. Did you pan along?

[RichardCurtin]

Very nice image. Was curious what it would look like cleaning the right border (with fast and poor cloning technique).

[Robert Holguin]

Wonderful shot. I really like the blurred wings, nice light, and background.
I really like Richard's repost.
Well done.

[Rachel Hollander]

Morkel - I like this. The slow ss and panning seems to have worked well. I saw a flock of these at one of the waterholes in Etosha. The noise that they make as they move en mass is quite something, almost sounds like a helicopter.

TFS,
Rachel

[Morkel Erasmus]

Thanks for the kind comments, folks.
And thank you Richard for the repost...it does look great that way, but I prefer not to do cloning (particularly excessive cloning) in my colour wildlife images. I will take your idea and play with it if I convert this to a fine art B&W print though!

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Morkel- this isn't black and white! haha :) very nice capture indeed. I like the aspect ratio. Would have liked to have seen this shot at a much slower shutter speed as well, just to see what it would look like.