Snow Goose

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Snow Geese and Tundra Swans are slowly returning to Middle Creek. I made this image today, in the BG is a distant hill.



1D4, 500f4, 1.4x, 1/1250s, f/8, ISO 400, manual

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Axel....I have to say this is one of the best snow goose shots I have seen. Great soft light and incredible incredible whites. That combined with the BG and the natural contrast.....hats off.

[Bonnie Block]

This is just stunning, Axel. Congrats!
Love the bg--lovely detail in the bird as well.

[RakeshDhareshwar]

Love the sharpness you have here . The whites are perfectly exposed !! Just too good.

[Dave Leroy]

A work of art Axel. Lovely.
Dave

[Kiran Poonacha]

Great work Axel bhai, loved the expo, nice wing position and details, good BG poping out the bird well...

[Mike Tracy]

Nice pose and killer back ground. Whites look perfect on the body and near wing but too bright on the far wing.

[Ilija Dukovski]

Great, perfect detail in the whites, eye contact,
nice contrast with the dark BG, great one.

[Harshad Barve]

This is show stopper Axel , Big congrats
TFS

[stuart wanuck]

just lovely what can i say

[Steve Maxson]

Great pose, light, and sharpness, Axel. Love the color of the background which really makes the bird stand out.

[Jim Fenton]

Beautiful exposure, sharpness is perfect and I really enjoy the BG Axel.

[Markus Jais]

This is great. One of the best Goose flight shots I've seen. Wonderful light, great wing pose and killer BG.
Excellent sharpness, details and exposure. Can't be any better than this.

Markus

[Peter Hawrylyshyn]

Axel -
About as good as it gets -very nicely done.
Very few birds there, when i visited last week.
Can i ask why you chose f8 and not f4?

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Axel -
About as good as it gets -very nicely done.
Very few birds there, when i visited last week.
Can i ask why you chose f8 and not f4?

Thanks, Peter! There are now about 20.000 snow geese and 700 tundra swans and the numbers should increase quickly as the day temperatures are well above freezing.

I used a 1.4x TC and stopped down to f/8 for better sharpness since I had enough light despite the overcast sky.

[Peter Hawrylyshyn]

Axel -
that's what i suspected - a lot of other posts typically use 500/f4 or 500x1.4TC/5.6

do you find the better sharpness at f8 only with the TC added , or also with just the 500/f4 by itself?

i may be down again in 2 weeks, hopefully the geese and swans will still be there

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Axel -
that's what i suspected - a lot of other posts typically use 500/f4 or 500x1.4TC/5.6

do you find the better sharpness at f8 only with the TC added , or also with just the 500/f4 by itself?

i may be down again in 2 weeks, hopefully the geese and swans will still be there

Yes, I only stop down to f/8 with TC attached. I don't think the bare lens gets much sharper above f/5.6.

The geese should still be there in two weeks, last year there were about 100.000 snow geese and 5.000 tundra swans if memory serves right. The birds started to leave around mid-March but they arrived earlier because of higher temperatures.

[Myer Bornstein]

excellent picture and thanks for the tech info

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Very nice goose. Love the wing up and the perfect exposure on whites. I find the BG blotchy or noisy, is this because of a big crop?

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Very nice goose. Love the wing up and the perfect exposure on whites. I find the BG blotchy or noisy, is this because of a big crop?

Thanks, Juan! The cropped image is about 3300 pixels wide. I'm not sure what you see, maybe it's due to NR.