Bosque Crane Blur

[Mike Milicia]

EOS-1D Mk IV, 500mm f/4 + 1.4xII, 1/50, f/8, ISO 200
About 80% of Full Frame

Photographed during the evening fly in at the crane pools on December 3.

Looking forward to your comments and critiques !

[Nancy Bell]

Very nice with the soft wing feathers while the red head and eye are fairly sharp. Lovely soft complementary colors in the bkgd. Too bad the tip of the legs are not complete. It is so hard to frame these guys while they are flying AND get a lovely blur. I know :(.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Interesting amount of blur (or lack of for a traditional "blur"). I like the overall effect, but I think the head and body could use an additional round of sharpening, at least for web. I also think a pano crop with the top white band cropped away would prove to be quite a strong comp IMO.

[Randy Stout]

Mike:

Well, I have always preferred 'blurs' with at least something sharp, so like this one a lot.
Good points by Nancy and Daniel.

Normally I would want more separation between the head and far wing, but the blurring of the latter makes it work for me.


Cheers

Randy

[subhrashis]

This amount of blur hits the 'Goldilocks spot' for me too! Lovely and dreamy effect, with a nice bg to go with it..

Is the leg cut off? if you extended the canvas, you could try rebuilding the feet too....

Thanks a lot for sharing this excellent image, and a very HAPPY NEW YEAR to you!

[Mike Milicia]

Thanks to all for the feedback!

Regarding the legs, they are obscured by the wing and blurred but not cut off. No canvas was added.

[denise ippolito]

Mike, A very beautiful blur. The sharp face and soft BG really make this nice. The rear wing is gorgeous!