Pertinent technical details or techniques: D500 600mm f4 (1/1600 sec at f5.6, Iso 560). I am still trying to get some flight shots of these guys,and have failed miserably. This one I took a while ago in early Spring. The BG worked out well and the lighting was nice. The large yellowish bokeh in the lower right of center is somewhat troubling…Jim
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Hi Jim
The head shot serenely works as a consolation prize. The eye has a look of what are the doing, or is that how you do that to it. This is a really nice photograph.
Peter
Excellent color, light, and background. Well composed. I think you would have been better off at F6 .3; the area immediately below the red plumage is somewhat soft compared to the rest of the plumage. I am not the least bit bothered by the bokeh.
I too like this quite a bit. Detail and sharpening are spot on, and the BG is complimentary, although the straight yellow line looks to be man made. I’ve never seen a sandhill crane, so I’m jealous you can get this close!
This is a wonderful portrait with great detail and lighting! I love the BG as well – both the softness and the colors. The touch of yellow is lovely but if it were a bit more OOF it would be less eye-catching. Partial opacity cloning could be very effective, or a careful selection of the bird and a slight blur of the BG with Field Blur, which will not blur across the selection boundary.
