Whoa! Trumpeter coming in hot

[Randy Stout]

This trumpeter was trying to land on a relatively small opening in the ice at our local bird sanctuary. He came in a bit fast, and had to drop the landing gear and lower the flaps to avoid an embarrassing crash. I was struck by how the feet were up as air brakes.

Z6. 500PF. 1/1600s , f/7.1 hand held

Post: LRCC, PS 2020. cropped far shoreline from above to increase the in your face effect. Added a little canvas on each side as the tips of the primaries were pretty close to the frame edge, but fort. not clipped.

Advice and comments appreciated.

Cheers

Randy

[John Mack]

Nice incoming pose. Sure does look like the brakes are on. The pano crop works well. Yes to being too tight. But looks like you already addressed that. Detail looks nice.

[Ivan Sjogren]

Well caught Randy!

I think the landing pose is excellent and as you mention the feet is particularly interesting to see. Also a well exposed image, whites looks good with plenty of details. Might do with a bit more sharpening though.
Understand that you want to crop to remove anything that distracts from the blue background but it would be interesting to see with a bit more space.

[gail bisson]

This one made me smile.
I love those big feet!
Exposure is spot on and whites look good even in the bright light.
I would love more room on the bottom is you have it,
Gail

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Randy, a bit tight overall and agree, it needs some more image content below, but I do like the subtle detail you have in the wings - processed with a light and sensitive touch. The tone is the chest adds and creates good 'form & shape' illustrates you don't need to hammer the subject with Contrast & Clarity, it's the right way to go Randy, enjoyed looking at this.

TFS
Steve

[arash_hazeghi]

love the feet that are used as air breaks.

I borrowed a Z6 from NPS last year, it wasn't that good compared to the D500, really struggled mightily with moving subjects and that laggy finder. heard they made some improvements with a FW update. do you like it?

TFS

[Randy Stout]

Thanks Steve and Arash:

So, Arash, the Z6 & Z7 are now on firmware 3.0. The autofocus has continued to improve with each version. I still prefer the D500 for really challenging/fast birds, but the Z6 is competent at this point. Because the auto focus modes are different from the DSLRs, it takes some work to find out what works best for your particular needs. The image quality is quite nice, very low noise, files seem quite malleable . I am looking forward to the next generation for even better performance, and no viewfinder issues. Don't need 61 MP however, as the Z8 is rumored to have.

Cheers

Randy

[arash_hazeghi]

Thanks Steve and Arash:

So, Arash, the Z6 & Z7 are now on firmware 3.0. The autofocus has continued to improve with each version. I still prefer the D500 for really challenging/fast birds, but the Z6 is competent at this point. Because the auto focus modes are different from the DSLRs, it takes some work to find out what works best for your particular needs. The image quality is quite nice, very low noise, files seem quite malleable . I am looking forward to the next generation for even better performance, and no viewfinder issues. Don't need 61 MP however, as the Z8 is rumored to have.

Cheers

Randy

cool, I think Nikon is still pretty far behind Sony in mirrorless. If you like low noise files and the best AF you should be looking at the D5 :)