Had to deal with a little of harsh light conditions, but nevertheless I very much enjoy my visit to the famous Trumpeter Swans of Monticello, Minnesota. A tiny park between houses and a lot of noise :) Photo taken with a 1Ds MIII, 500L F4 +1.4 extender. Aperture Priority, 1/2000, ISO 400 at F-5.6
The light was not only harsh, but the angle of it not ideal. I don't know this park but was there a way to position yourself with the sun directly behind you? I also wish for more seperation between the birds - but usually difficult to achieve successfully with tighter comps as here. In this situation a single bird in the image would have been preferable. Good job in freezing the motion, and you did leave a bit of room for the birds to fly into (good).
Agree. the angle was not ideal. The place I was in is called a park, but in reality is a narrow space between homes from which you can reach the river. The place is fence (maybe 20 or 30 feet)The community (rightly so) has increasingly be concern that visitors have been getting too close to the birds as a consequence "panic flight" would occur and all (many hundreds) of birds would take off, causing potential injuries.
All this makes it challenging to move around. A local told me that afternoon are better for lighting since it would be slightly behind me at that point, so I will try to give this a try.
I also have been told there are couple of other places with lesser densities of birds but more open spaces, so I will check those out too.
I do have some single bird shoots I would share later, I just happen to like this one for some reason.
Your image looks like it was taken very early in the morning. The best time for a good angle to the sun at this park gets later in the day as winter progresses and is probably not at it's best until 11:00AM or later now.
Fortunately the sun is so low at this time of year that you can shoot almost all day long ........if you can stand the cold!
Trumpeter Swans in Monticello MN
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