Although I got the whole heron in the single frame, I decided to do a different crop. Hopefully this makes for a more interesting image than one of the whole bird.
Any
ISO 250, 200-600 at 600 mm, F7 .1, 2500th, about one third of a full frame.
I like this presentation, David. The really large birds tend to lose a lot of interesting detail when they’re all in the frame, have some room to move and then are presented on a relatively small screen. It’s nice to see an occasional portrait, and even better when the bird’s in flight.
Oh I agree - this gives us so much detail we don’t often see when they are standing. Those beautiful belly feathers and the leading edges of the enormous wings. The blue shading comes through very well, too. So great you got the eye and everything in focus. I stink at BIF so am always in wonder when folks do it well. Good light in the eye, too!
David, you made a great choice. The angle of the head and neck and how they cut through the center of the frame make this work, as does the contour of the wings.
I would suggest that, because you chose to emphasize the bold geometry of the bird, that you crop to make it more symmetrical. You cropped looser on the right side than you did on the bottom. I think you could bring it in from the right to ensure the amount of wing/curve is even and balanced on both sides of the neck, and that way the neck will truly form a fully-centered diagonal line from the lower right corner.
Excellent crop, David. Love the way the Heron is flying into the scene. I actually have a shot of a jet coming into the scene like this…taken at an air show.
I really love it cropped like this, David! It makes the movement look more dynamic. It also makes it look more like fine art in my opinion. Great capture and crop!
