Sandhill Flyby

Image Critiques Avian Critiques
1

Sandhill Flyby
Sandhill Flyby1536×1109 150 KB

I’d heard that lots of migratory sandhills were hanging out at a nearby wildlife refuge so I went over to see what I could see and, yep, they were there in large numbers. Here’s an inflight shot I got of a single one flying by.

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

I like the pose, and detail even though it is a fairly uninteresting background. Cropping okay?

Technical Details

Z9, Nikon 200-500 lens, monopod, 1/3200th, f 8.0, 750mm, ISO 500, Photo AI, cropped to 2839 x 2050

2

Technical: The crane is nice and sharp and exposed well.

Aesthetic / Emotional: I don’t care for images of birds in flight against a plain blue sky. They don’t tell any story and the context of where they live is missing as this could be anywhere where cranes can be photographed. Please keep my comment in context as I live 90 minutes from Bosque Del Apache and have taken thousands of crane images.

3

Hey, Dave. While there may be nothing “remarkable” concerning the aesthetics of the photo, your technique is spot on. A good inflight look at this crane.

4

The bird is sharp and detailed, in a wonderful “pose” and the light is handled well with good shadow and highlight detail. The colors are subtle and lovely and I really like the crop/composition. The sky? OK – birds fly in the sky, and we can’t always have lovely and complementary clouds or low fly-bys. The blue is lovely and natural-looking. 99/100.

2 Likes
5

Great photo image of the crane, very sharp and great color. I like that there is distance on the left side for direction of flight.

6

I agree with all the positives above and like how the blue sky complements the crane’s colours. I think some of the folks here will groan when I say this, but I’d like to see the broken first left-wing primary touched up.

7

The sky doesn’t bother me at all, Dave. Great catch of the crane in flight.

8

I looked at that initially and decided that it was a curved primary (like one on the rt. wingtip also) that is aiming directly at the camera, not a broken feather so I decided not to mess with it. I DO see what you mean, though. Thanks for your input.

9

Yep, you’re right, Dave!

10

Excellent color and detail and I like the wing position.

11

I love the wing position, and the overall colors. I’m with you though that bird-against-a-blue sky is not as exciting as against a dramatic background of , for example, mountains. But, as Diane mentions, it’s what birds do :wink: … Either way, a pleasant image. Cheers, Hans