Sandhill Cranes at High Noon

[Bill Dix]

Well, actually closer to 1:00 PM. From my trip to Whitewater Draw in February. The cranes fly out of the Draw at dawn, to feed in the corn fields north of Tombstone, and then return to the safety of the Draw at mid-day. This was on the return, against a very bright white Arizona sky. This is one of several that I didn't bother to process at the time, because of the tough lighting. But this month's theme prompted me to go back and take another look. Removed several oof and overlapping birds; adjusted curves and levels. Full width cropped to pano.

D7000, 500f4 + 1.4 TC, ISO 800, 1/1250s @ f/6.3 manual, fill @ -1.3 EV.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice high key image of this flock, Bill. Good choice of framing.

[keith mitchell]

Looks like good processing ,nice to see all the different wing angles, bet it's good to see all these birds.

Keith.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Nice high key image, Bill. Thank you for sharing.

[adrian dancy]

What a glorious image ....everything to like here Bill.

[gail bisson]

Nice diagonal line created by the birds.
Birds seem a bit washed out to my eye- might add a tweak to black point.
Gail

[Bill Dix]

Thank you all. Gail, because of the high-key nature of the image, and to capture the feeling of that bright Arizona light, I had purposely left this a bit washed out. But I may have overdone the effect. Here's a repost, in which I pinched in the black Levels slider to something a bit more normal.

[Geoffrey Montagu]

This works very well for both the high key theme, and a beautiful flight image, Bill. Like the resulting quality in the repost.




Geoffrey