Honestly I don’t know if this should be in landscape or avian.
I visited eastern Nebraska this past weekend to see the migration of the sandhill cranes. Depending on what you read or who you talk to 500,000 to 1,000,000 cranes migrate through Nebraska in the month of March.
They are not easy to photography. Autofocus was going crazy searching for what to photograph
There are so many of them the camera does not know where to focus. I took off the eye detection to see if that helped. Maybe some but not much.
I was hoping to get a nice landscape This photo was taken at sunrise as the cranes were waking up and flying out to the fields for the day. This is one of the best I could get. I think the reflection of the sun on the water is still too bright, I have not successfully been able to bring it down.
I am open to any thought and critiques.
Type of Critique Requested
Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
Emotional: Feedback on the emotional impact and artistic value of the image.
Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
Open to anything
Technical Details
Canon R6, Tamron 150-600mm, f11, 1/1600, ISO Auto but reading as 800, handheld.
And Landscape it is! Perfectly appropriate here and so glad you made the decision to post!
Been forever, decades, since I’ve photographed migrating waterfowl, but I clearly remember the challenges of doin so. I think this is captured beautifully; Great colors, contrast and a very pleasing combination of the birds, the environment and an almost tranquil moment.
As far as the sun and brightness? Just yesterday I was driving around town at the end of the day, just after a rain cloud had drenched the streets… driving in to the sun on wet blacktop… was literally blinding. So, while it’s easy to blow out exposures in images, the representation of the sun like this is always real. So I think it looks quite natural and appropriate.
My ONLY small nit is maybe considering removing the lone, forward crane approaching the right edge. Not a big deal, but compared to the flight and position of the other main birds, the one on the right is kinda the odd man out.
Overall a very beautiful and enjoyable image. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Terry,
wow, that looks beautiful. It was really worth getting up early. I love the silhouettes of the flying birds.
I agree with @Lon_Overacker about the brightness of the sun. It looks realistic, the sun should always be the brightest part of the image. Any attempt to darken the highlights too much would look weird.
What I tend to do in my images that include the direct sun is to try to avoid real yellows. It may sound weird and it’s my personal taste, but I try to push those yellows slightly in the orange direction.
I dragged the yellow Luminance slider to the right (+5)
Finally I added a Radial Gradient Filter over the sun and dragged the Dehaze slider to the left (-30) and the Temperature slider to the right (+28). This adjustment softens the harsh transition of the sun somewhat.
Your image is fantastic even without any adjustments. I only mentioned it because you didn’t seem entirely happy with the bright sun.
