Eleven SH cranes

[Dennis Zaebst]

I liked the BG of this one. Now, not every crane is properly posed, but just you try to get eleven cranes at once to follow your directions! Taken at Bosque in November about 10:00 AM.

Canon 7D; ISO 400; 500 mm f/4L IS; 1/1000 sec. @ f/10. PP in LR 4.3, almost full-frame except cropped to 16:9 aspect ratio. A little sharpening and luminance smoothing using edge masking slider in LR.

[Joe Senzatimore]

Great accomplishment on your part to get the Cranes to follow orders. Love the BG and how it gives the image a 3D feel.

[Randy Stout]

Dennis:

As Joe mentine, nice 3D effect here. Well exposed, interesting clouds.

It is almost impossible to get this many with no overlaps and good poses. I do wish the one cranes head wasn't hidden however.

Cheers

Randy

[Bob Malbon]

Birds here in the Northeast never follow my orders - sweet capture!

[Shawn Zierman]

Very nice. I really enjoy the background composition on this one. The sky drama is an added bonus.
Nice flock of cranes and sharpness is good. The only aspect of the image that I don't care for, is the
amount of shadow area showing in the underwings in a few of the cranes....looks like the light angle
was coming in slightly to your left....

[Sachin Saraf]

This is wonderful image with nice 3D effect..Loved that BG...

[Dennis Zaebst]

Thanks everyone. Shawn, I upped the shadows slider and enhanced contrast to compensate. Perhaps this looks slightly better.

[Daniel Cadieux]

You were bound to get some merging like you did here and I'm OK with most of them, except the one where the head is completely lost. I too enjoy the BG, especially the mountains...the clearer gap in the sky does pull my eye though. Repost definitely improves things - nice to see some details under those wings.

[Dennis Zaebst]

Thanks Daniel...your comments are always spot on. Here's a version unchanged except I used the adjustment brush in LR 4.3 to soften the sky only by reducing contrast and highlights there. Also added a bit of luminance smoothing to the sky.