Silhouette of cranes from Bosque

[allanrube]

Silhouette of sandhill cranes from yesterday evening. D800 - 600 with 14tc - 1/1250 f/6.3 iso 1250.

I have a question on silhouettes in general. I used levels to bring the birds down to black. This has more impact but reduces any detail to nada.

I would like to know what others thing. Leave some detail in the bird or bring to black like I did.

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Nice shot Allan. I haven't shot many silhouettes, but I like the black. Since you can't get much detail anyway, I think that trying to extract some might just make it look less "clean" (for lack of a better word)

[Nick Palmieri]

Very nice as presented. The separation and positioning of the birds, along with the color of the sky make this work nicely! TFS

[Daniel Cadieux]

For a full silhouette I prefer black...makes for a higher impact image IMO. If you had more obvious sidelighting you could opt for some detail highlighted by the light but I usually prefer full black for images like you've posted here. I do wish for fuller wings and better primaries separation (wings high up or lower down). I like you have two inhere, and the oranges look really good.

[Randy Stout]

Allan:

Daniel has summed up my feelings pretty well, both on silhouettes in general, and the wing positions in this image.

Look forward to more!

Cheers

Randy

[John Cooper]

Another vote Allan for a black silhouette - nice to get the two cranes in the composition against that orange sky.

[allanrube]

Thanks to all those who voted in the poll. I agree with darkening to black and am happy others feel this way. If there was a reason to save details - say a bit of light on the head looking cool - I would make 2 versions to compare.