Lesser yellowlegs in flight. One of the few flight photos of mine that's sharp to 1:1, so I have lots of crop options. Not sure what a good crop would be though. Do his oof brethren add to the image, or should I crop them out? Should I include some of them, or crop as close as possible? I've tried a couple possibilities, but wanted to see what others thought before sharing.
Pieces of birds are always difficult. Here's my first thought -- and I'd clone out the beak on the right -- left it in to make where I cropped easier to see.
Besides that beak on the right...maybe that wing sticking up from the middle? That wing
seems to be more in focus than the bird in front of it, making it distracting to me.
Hi Grant, i totally agree with Doug, and would definitely clone out the beak and the wing popping up in the middle. It would also be possible to crop a bit more from the top, clone out the beak and the wing in the middle trying to isolate the sandpiper in focus and the one immediately below.
The problem with crowded groups like this is, the more you crop the more you see to ccop. The best bet is to shoot a lot and try to find one where there is a more workable arrangement. Or try again another day. This sort of shooting will have a lot of near-misses. And a lot more complete misses.
If you crop to the sharp bird here, you will have a lot of cloning to do (or else accept pieces at the edges) and the IQ will suffer from too much crop.