Sandhill Crane Running Take-Off

[Roger Clark]

A sandhill crane runs on ice to gather speed to take off. It may seem easy to run like this, but the temperature was 9 degrees F and the cranes stood in the cold lake overnight! Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge from last Saturday.


Canon 5D Mark II, 500 mm f/4 L IS lens plus 1.4x TC giving 700 mm. ISO 200, 1/1250 second at f/6.3. Slight crop.

As usual, I started my session with my 1D Mark II thinking frames per second and action would be better with the 1DII. The 1DII did quite well. but I switched to the 5DII and it was immediately obvious after reviewing a few in camera jpegs that the 5DII images were so superior, that I kept working with the 5DII. Reviewing my images after I got home again shows the 5DII to be superior. Frames per second is not everything. AF tracking on these birds was just fine with the 5DII.


Roger

[Tony Whitehead]

Nice light showing the warm tones and plumage detail, Roger. I like the icy surface and BG with the mixtures of warm and cool colours.

[Harshad Barve]

Spectacular image Roger , awesome colors , running pose and sublime lighting , for me this is PRINT IT , HANG IT image
TFS

[Daniel Cadieux]

Nice action, and I like the combination of the warm tones along with the icy conditions. Love the pose too - at the peak of the action! Perhaps a little strong on the contrast, and have you considered digitally removing some of the debris on the ice?

[Kiran Poonacha]

Thanks for info, sure the full frame of the 5d also helped you cover more space.. loved the details and pose here.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Cool pose and good eye contact. I would decrease contrast a bit and give it more room top and left.

[Roger Clark]

Nice action, and I like the combination of the warm tones along with the icy conditions. Love the pose too - at the peak of the action! Perhaps a little strong on the contrast, and have you considered digitally removing some of the debris on the ice?

Daniel,

I agree on the contrast. Photoshop (CS4) seems to be changing my proof colors on me so I was actually in the wrong monitor on CMYK proof colors when I edited this image. But I was interested in what people thought of it. I'll reprocess it when I get some time this busy week.

No, I did not remove any thing from the image, except by the crop. The little white things on the ice are little fairy castles of ice and the individual crystals are seen in the full resolution image. There was debris on the ice closer to the flock where the birds slept overnight, but this is further south and the ice was pretty clean.

Roger

[david cramer]

Nice action shot with a great pose. I also find the colors over saturated and the contrast too strong. Once you've corrected these items this should be a real keeper. Nice work in isolating the bird and keeping the bg clear - which is not often easy at the crane pools.

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Love the action and beautiful contrasting colors and lighting. Really excellent timing and well composed. thanks for sharing.