These birds were part of a flock of I'd say 2-3000 that came in from behind me ( I was in my layout punt in a little tule and concrete mesh sit down blind with 35 decoys out in front ) on the wind, wheeled into it, and started landing in front of & behind me.. It happened so suddenly and the uproar of their squawking was so deafening, with many willow leafing with their wings and creating the characteristic snapping sound that accompanies that manoeuvre, that my heart was pounding and I had to concentrate to pick out birds to focus on and then switch to another as that one landed. To top that spectacle off they all stayed around posing until they gradually drifted away over the next 10 minutes. 5DMIII, EF 400mm f/4 DO IS,ISO 1600,0 EV, f4, 1/500, 5% crop, 10 min. before sunset
Looks like you managed to get this one a bit late in the arrival of the flock - missed your chance to get them higher in the air. Happens to all of us, I'm sure.
Image is a bit dark and could be improved with some careful post production - you don't mention what you have done already, so hard to point you in the right direction but my approach on this would be brighten and chrominance NR before conversion in DPP3, open in PS, set black point with levels and then adjust the luminance with a Curves adjustment, final NR, output and output sharpening.
Much thanks for your advice Gerald. I'm not currently using Photoshop (although I have PS CC and am hoping for some study time over Xmas if I can get away from the Grandkids for a while ), having done all my PP in Aperture. I did add some brightness , the effect of which I liked. I had already added some NR b/c of the ISO and had bumped black point, shadows, exposure,recovery, and levels. I actually did get shots higher in the air as you can see from this earlier image which was actually taken after the 1st image I posted ( and more fully skyward as the flock came by me from the side, then I had to shift camera/lens from taking shots over top of the blind to my left to relocate into the window in the mesh to my front from where these shots were taken) . Many attempted shots didn't turn out because there were so many birds that when I'd get on one a swirl of others would cross over and I'd lose that focus.
3 amongst 1000's
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