Sandhill Cranes take off.

[Brian Desjardins]

Hi everyone, 1st Happy New year to all !, This was shot @ the Bosque from the flight deck, saw these 2 starting to pick up speed and bowing there neck/heads getting ready to take off, got a few nice frames.
Edited in LR, lowered the highlights and adjusted the whites and blacks then off to PS added a bit of canvas in front birds there were almost at the edge of the frame, then color correction (colorblindness issue), back to LR for output with standard sharpening. As always comments and tips are always welcome.




Nikon D600, Nikon 200-500 f /5.6 @ 500mm, 1/1600 f / 5.6, ISO 800.

[William Dickson]

Well captured Brian, you got two great flight shots, one, near enough to fully up, and the other fully down. would have liked to see both with a better HA. Its a pity the bird on our left is flying away from us. Very nice feather detail and I love the natural surroundings.

Will

[David Salem]

Great that you got two in one frame with different wing positions and that both are nice and sharp.
I find the image quite bright and washed out so I took the liberty of showing you what I see and my corrections. Hope it's ok.
I didn't lower the exposure at all but a moved the levels slider in PS to add more blacks which in turn added more feather detail and subdued the brighter look. I also bumped up the saturation a little. I then cloned out some of the water on top to keep my eye from wandering that way. It also helped to subdue the overall scene.
Nice capture and keep after it!!

[Brian Desjardins]

Hi David, thanks a lot for taking the time and showing me what you see. I do see the huge improvement in the image, a lot more contrast and it has brought out more details in the birds and the browns in the grass. I always adjust my blacks so there are just out of the clipping range same for the whites. I'm always a bit worried about adjusting the saturation with my colorblindness but will keep it in mind for future posts. I'm wondering if when I color adjusted it made it washed out, ill have to keep an eye out for that. Again thanks for taking the time, very much appreciated.


Brian.

[annmpacheco]

Wonderful image and the repost from David really makes this shine. great take off capture!