Home is not Bad Either...

[Arthur Morris]

Headed down to the lake near my home in Indian Lake Estates. It's not Midway but it can be pretty good in early spring. Robert O'Toole and I did well yesterday and I had a great morning today. This, my favorite, was created with the Canon 70-200mmm f/4L IS lens, the 1.4X II TC, and the EOS-7D (handheld on the ground at 280mm). ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 stop: 1/500 sec. at f/8.

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

[Sid Garige]

Fantastic image Artie. Great background and wonderful shooting angle. incredible details on both adult and chicks.

[Tony Whitehead]

DOF covers the subjects well and the colours and chick poses are great. I especially like the layer of OOF flowering plants in the BG.

[Manjesh Lingamurthy]

Hi Artie

Well composed and well exposed shot with lovely details on the birds. Mother feeding and the two chicks being curious with there heads up, gives a very warm feeling. It appears a little oversaturated for my taste. I see a tiny dust speck at right side of the sky, behind the crane(likey sensor dust). Thanks for sharing.

Manjesh

[Jim Fenton]

Home looks rather darned good to me :)

HA on both chicks is great and I like the good eye contact with the adult as well.

Exposure and sharpness look great.

I like the OOF flowers in the background. The OOF foreground bugs me a bit as one doesn't see things this way unless you're lying down...but I get the feeling that I'm the only one who thinks this way!

[Stu Bowie]

Low angle looks good from here, and all three nice and sharp. Colours look natural to me.

[Brian E. Small]

Artie,

Quick question for you.............you say this image was made on the ground and I know you've had some back problems in your past. I'm wondering if you ever use or have used a right angle viewfinder for this type of work? If so, what are your thoughts about using one as opposed to direct viewing through the back of the camera?

[Markus Jais]

Beautiful shot. Wonderful light. I love the low angle and the two visible cute chicks.

Did you use a hide for this shot? Or are those birds used to people like many other birds seems to be in Florida (I got to get to that place soon!).
I can't imagine getting a similar shot of a Common Crane here in Europe with a 70-200 + 1.4 and without a hide.

Markus

[Arthur Morris]

Colors and SAT look fine from here too. In fact, I desaturated this about 10 points. As for the o-o-f grasses, I did crop some off the bottom. What can I say Jim? I spend a lot of time on the ground and am not a big fan of sharply focused and rendered distracting foreground elements. :)

[Arthur Morris]

Artie, Quick question for you.............you say this image was made on the ground and I know you've had some back problems in your past. I'm wondering if you ever use or have used a right angle viewfinder for this type of work? If so, what are your thoughts about using one as opposed to direct viewing through the back of the camera?

Hi Brian, My back problems were in the long ago past. I had my major spinal surgery in 1991. Yikes! It's been great since then and even better with weight loss and proper eating. I have no problem looking through the viewfinder so have not even considered on of the right angle finders. It would be nice at times if I could get comfortable with using Live View...

I am using cousin Joe's image of my bleeding albatross bite in tomorrow's Bulletin :)

[Fabs Forns]

Great colors and light, low angle and surroundings. Great to get the two chicks in the image.

[Arthur Morris]

Beautiful shot. Wonderful light. I love the low angle and the two visible cute chicks. Did you use a hide for this shot? Or are those birds used to people like many other birds seems to be in Florida (I got to get to that place soon!). I can't imagine getting a similar shot of a Common Crane here in Europe with a 70-200 + 1.4 and without a hide. Markus

I started in my car. I should have mentioned that I tossed them a bit of corn. At that point, I got out of the car. The adults came running and the chicks followed soon, at times too close for any lens to focus :)

Above is another that I made with the same combo. I do wish that I had put my vertical grip back on the 7D. I took it off to save weight for the Midway trip.

[denise ippolito]

Artie, Sweet image. It's nice to get the adult with the 2 chicks. The purple flowers are gorgeous and add so much to the image IMO.
The second image is adorable and they look so tall. I like both of their poses.

[Brian E. Small]

I'll look forward to the bulletin ;-)

[Grace Scalzo]

So many fine elements come together in this image. There's a kind of sweetness about it, almost like a childrens' book could come from it. (BTW- A pair of sandhill cranes was spotted in S. Hampton on Long Island this weekend. Very rare for here.)

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Grace and all and Denise. :) The thing that I like about the Pane 1 image is the perfect placement of the two chicks. In the frame before the head of the forward chick merged with the neck of the adult. Whew! I wish that the adult's head were angled a bit more towards us.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Artie, the poses, head angles and low angle make this one a winner. Superb shot.

[Mike Lentz]

Fantastic images Artie! The low perspective and great coloration in the first image really are eye candy.