Snow Geese in Flight - BdA

[Richard Kowalski]

A pair of Snow Geese climbing out from Bosque Del Apache on the morning of 18 January.

Canon 20D, 1/2000th, Av, Evaluative Metering, ISO 1600
Sigma 50-500 / 500mm @ f/ 13, handheld

WB & -1/5th stop exposure adjustment in ACR, Added canvas top & bottom, Noise Ninja on the birds and Quick Mask + Gaussian Blur on the sky. Touch of sharpening on eyes, Slight Levels & Curves to bring up under-wing detail all in PS

[Jim Neiger]

Hi Richard,

You really had some nice light here and that is important in an image like this with a contrasty bird. You did very well with the exposure. I like the composition you chose as well. Why did you feel it was necessary to blur the sky bg? Is this a large crop? If not, there should be no need to blur the sky. F13 may have come in handy here, but it's more depth of field than needed unless you were specifically trying to get both birds sharp.

[Richard Kowalski]

Thanks for your input Jim.

This is the full frame, and I added a little canvas to the top & bottom so the wingtips would have a little more room. I made the image using ISO 1600. I used a smaller f-stop specifically so I could get as many birds in focus as possible when I had a larger flocks flying by. Because of the higher ISO, the blue is rather noisy. I used just enough Noise Ninja to beat down the noise in the shaded parts of the birds, but the noise in the sky was still objectionable.

I lucked out that this pair came close enough that they filled the frame nicely, but I probably could have opened
up another stop or two, but I'm not that fast at the controls just yet.

[JP Bruce]

Hi Richard,

Really like this. The only thing I could offer is since you added room at the top I would like just a little more. Very good as is.