Sandhill Crane

[Bryan Hix]

I shot a whole series of photos of a pair of cranes with their juvenile chick. I was on my fishing boat and approached them at sunset with my trolling motor very slowly and they allowed me to get within 50 yards and continued to forage for food until dark. Pretty cool encounter. I haven't been that close to them before. I don't know if the crop is too tight or not. I look forward to hearing feedback. Thanks.

Canon 1D Mk3
500 f/4 with 1.4x tc
ISO 1000, f/7.1, 1/200th
Eval meter -1comp, manual
no flash, resting on bow of boat
64pm, 72 degrees
PSE7, CR, curves adj, sharpen, NR on BG

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

beautiful warm light,pose,eye contact,angle...I would prefer to clone the brunch on the right side

[Gerald Kelberg]

That must have been a real thrill! Light and detail are great, delightful pose from the 'model'.
The background is obviously a bit less than ideal. You need to do some serious work on getting rid of the broken branch on the right side and - but it will be worth it.
I'm not in the habit of working other people's images as I am just a CS learner myself really, but I have taken the liberty here, just to see what can be achieved - hope you don't mind! You will be able to do better with the original file, I'm sure.

Regards,

Gerald

[Bryan Hix]

Gerald, I totally agree with you about the BG. I tried to blur it out more, but kept fighting halos. I appreciate your go at it.

[Bryan Hix]

Well, here's my attempt at fixing the BG. I didn't want to overdo the blur, but I think it looks OK, not great now.