The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Each winter the Sandhill Cranes visit the Pacific Flyway at Staten Island, California, in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, The “action” starts after sunset, as waves of cranes (not sure of the exact number, but about 5,000 visit the area each winter) come to rest for the evening in the wetlands. The challenge in taking these photos is distance and light, as many of the cranes do not return until after sunset, and light is sparse.
Specific Feedback
I cropped this photo but left the reflections in; not sure if this works or if cropping further would improve the photo.
Technical Details
Photo taken with a Nikon Z6 and Nikon Z 100mm-400mm lens. SS 1/250, f5.6, ISO 9000.
Hi Richard. Welcome to NPN and the Avian forum. This is a really nice first post of a very difficult scene to photograph well. I’ve been at crane roosts and you’re right-they come in pretty late. As far as the crop is concerned, I think I’d go a bit further. I downloaded your image and straightened and recropped it. Here’s what it looks like after my butchering:
I straightened by using the straighten function in Photoshop’s crop function and drawing the line I wanted it to make vertical from the back edge of the top bird’s wing to the same location in its reflection. This usually works well in water images. You’ll notice the far side of the pond is now level as well. I liked the reflections, but the upper bird’s reflection was just too low down and added a bunch of empty space that didn’t feel right to me. After removing that, the image looked a bit too long and skinny. I’d have liked to have taken some off the right, but the cranes were too dense there to provide a good location and I ended up coming in a bit from the left to where there was some empty space. Other than that, I removed some partial birds and their reflections from the edges.
This is just another interpretation of the scene for you to consider. You caught some glorious late evening light in this and it’s definitely worth working on.
Welcome again and I’m looking forward to seeing a lot more of your work and reading your comments on other people’s images.
Hi Richard. Great first post. I really like the light on the cranes. For me, the landing crane is the star and Dennis’s crop works to emphasize this. Also like the pose of the crane below and to our right of the landing crane. Well done.
Hi Dennis, thanks for your valuable feedback and work on the photo. It looks much better now. The tighter crop (without losing the reflections) is a big improvement as is straightening the back (pond) area. The cranes are fun to photograph but definitely challenging with light that is rapidly fading. Thanks again.
