Sandhill Crane Coming in for a landing

[Rodney Flowers]

Canon EOS 50D with Canon 600mm f/4 L IS
ISO 250 f/4.5 1/1600sec
Another Bird was above this, but it was out of focus so I cropped the image to include only this one. Let me know what you think.

[Doug Brown]

You got good eye contact and nice sharpness. The whites seem slightly overexposed; I might back off just a little. The wing position could be better; I'm not crazy about the way the head and bill intersect the wing. Also the bird is a little tight in the frame.

From a tech standpoint, I'd go for more DOF with a higher ISO when photographing BIF (especially large birds such as cranes). Thanks for posting!

[Ben Egbert]

Very nice. It looks like the sharpest focus is on the birds right foot (left in image). I am gussing you might have been tracking center point on the chest. Still a reasonably sharp image with a good exposure and background.

I also use a 50D, I would probably run NR on the background as it has a bit of a gritty look, or else mask the background during sharpening.

[Rodney Flowers]

Thanks for the info Doug. I see what you mean about the head and bill intersecting the wing. One more thing to watch out for when sorting through pictures. I am sure I could fix the exposure, crop a little more and get rid of the noise like Ben suggested, but I am thinking I may not keep this image so it is probably better to spend my time working on other images.