Ground hornbill in Flight

[Grant Atkinson]

Canon 1DMk4, Canon 300mmf2.8is lens, handheld. S/s 1/2000s at f/5.6, iso 400. Eval metering, Ai servo. Subject distance 25m. Location Savuti, Botswana. Feb 2011, 06h59am. No cropping. Processed in ACR and CS5. Southern ground hornbills are capable if not graceful fliers, I wasn't sure whether to name this "In Flight' or "In Fright" given the birds appearance. I was interested to see the new feathers growing out on the underwing.
I was not able to zoom out for more space around the bird as i was using a fixed lens.
All c and c welcome
Cheers
Grant

www.grantatkinson.com

[arash_hazeghi]

wow! what an amazing bird!!! well done, this would work much better in a vert IMO.

[Colin Driscoll]

How bizarre! Excellent shot and yes vertical format should be better. TFS!

[Craig Brelsford]

"Vertical" came to my mind before I'd read Colin's and arash's contributions. Horizontal will work better if you add a strip of canvas below the lower wing.

[DanWalters]

Really like the tattered look of the wings and the red on the head really stands out.

[Giulio Zanni]

Beautiful and well captured bird. I like the horizontal with a little bit more canvas at the bottom, as the open wings draw the diagonal.

Giulio

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Grant, very bright and bold image, the sky really isolates the bird well. Would also prefer more space below and the LHS, might also try to open up some more detail the the blacks.

TFS
Steve

[Brendan Dozier]

Very cool looking bird and great perspective! Good contrast, maybe experiment some more with crop.

[Pieter de Waal]

Hey Grant , great to get one of these in flight, sharp with good light and eye contact.

[Grant Atkinson]

Hi all, and thanks for looking and commenting. I tried a 3x2 vertical crop, but it is too tight around the edges, so for sure I will add some canvas to the original, which will open up both crop possibilities. I was lucky with the shot as this birds two companions flew away to my left before this one made up its mind to follow, so I was ready.
Thanks again
cheers
grant