Curlew in flight

[Roy Churchill]

I quite liked the light in this one although I was a fair way from the bird and this a fair crop.
Camera: 7D
Lens: 300/2.8 + 1.4tc
Shutter Speed: 1/1600
Aperture: f4
ISO: 800
Metering Method: Manual
Support: Hand held
converted in ACR and finished in CS5

Thanks for your critique.

[John Chardine]

I like this one Roy. The light is great, as is the wing position of the bird and the background. The IQ is clearly suffering a little from the large crop. Not a whole lot you can do about that after the image is made.

[Richard Stern]

Hi Roy,

I agree with John. I especially like the way the blurred bg makes the bird really stand out and produces an almost 3-D like effect. Pity about the large crop.

Richard

[Julie Kenward]

Awesome for such a large crop, Roy. That bird really does pop off the screen at us.

One very small nitpik here and that is that the bird's head and body run parallel to the line of the cliff/mountain behind it. If it had been possible (and I'm sure it wasn't in this case) getting him a bit lower in the blue area or a bit higher in the lighter beige area would have made this even stronger IMO. As is it's a lovely image, though - especially considering his speed.

[Roy Churchill]

Thank you for your feedback folks. For info the crop is just 25% of the full frame.