Theme Flying Right at Me

[Muhammad Arif]

Sandhill Crane flying straight towards me. Captured at Bosque del Apache on 11/28/2019. About a medium crop, rotated less than 1 degree to level the eyes, couple of small spots cloned in the left wing.

Canon EOS R
Canon 500mm (old five) + 1.4x III
1/3200 | f/6.3 | ISO 400.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Well caught, the long focal length has caused compression making it look as though the bird didn't have a neck! Nothing you could do about that apart from bearing that fact in mind for the future.
I may consider adding a little pop this may give a little more depth as it were and give a greater impression of depth.

[Muhammad Arif]

Thank you for your feedback. What would be the best way to "add a little pop"? What I mean is what settings should I tweak?

[John Mack]

Funny I had the same though as Jonathan. The bird looks like it doesn't have a neck. Looks nice high key. Also like the curled up wing tips.

[Brian Sump]

Muhammad, very nice high key flight shot. The tones and colors work nicely from my view.

Love the down the barrel stare and glad to see some of the underside of the flight feathers.

I could see one with subject a bit more left in frame. TFS!

[Muhammad Arif]

Funny I had the same though as Jonathan. The bird looks like it doesn't have a neck. Looks nice high key. Also like the curled up wing tips.

Thanks, John. Nice to see another fellow Ithacan on BPN :)

[Muhammad Arif]

Muhammad, very nice high key flight shot. The tones and colors work nicely from my view.

Love the down the barrel stare and glad to see some of the underside of the flight feathers.

I could see one with subject a bit more left in frame. TFS!

Brian, thank you. I've attached another image with the bird more towards the left. I also reprocessed the image to try to "add a little pop". Not sure if I succeeded.

[Dorian Anderson]

The spread wings are very dramatic! I agree it's odd to see this bird without a neck, but that fact that you got both yellow eyes in focus makes this image work. I also like the feet peaking out from the undercarriage. I would move the bird left in the frame as there's a lot of empty space there. The bird feels to be coming around to the viewer's right, so I think that should be the long side of the horizontal axis.

[Muhammad Arif]

The spread wings are very dramatic! I agree it's odd to see this bird without a neck, but that fact that you got both yellow eyes in focus makes this image work. I also like the feet peaking out from the undercarriage. I would move the bird left in the frame as there's a lot of empty space there. The bird feels to be coming around to the viewer's right, so I think that should be the long side of the horizontal axis.

Thank you for your comments. Those are very helpful. I did move the bird to the left after Brian's suggestion. Are you thinking I should move it more to the left? More upper left or lower left?

[Dorian Anderson]

Sorry, I missed the repost! It looks much better.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Wow, this is very cool!! I'd be so happy with this. The repost addresses the one concern I had nicely. Good call levelling the eyes. Was there snow on the ground? The underwings have that light bouncing back up off the snow effect - which I like.