Sandhill Crane

[Dave Goldberg]

Taken last winter at the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Smyrna, Delaware. Driving out for the day I came across a pair of Sandhill Cranes just off the road. The refuge had some fresh snowfall (pretty rare in Delaware), which provided a nice white background. I had the shutter speed set pretty high in case they decided to take off, but the higher ISO level didn't seem to be much of a problem.

Canon R7 with RF 100-500, 1/3200", f/7.1, ISO 2500. DXO PR4 for DN and edited in DT 4.8

• Canon EOS R7
• RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM
• ƒ/7.1
• 500mm
• 1/3200s
• ISO 2500
• Tue, 23 January 2024 2:02 PM

 

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Dave these birds are so photogenic with their awesome plumage. Typical behavioural capture and I like the fact you have the head parallel to the sensor. The very stark white backdrop works for me and really grates a dramatic standout.

ISO 2500 is minimal Dave in this day and age, I was shoot 8-10k the other day with no problem from the R5s &R3 and with this capture you wouldn't really have any visible noise to deal with.

Overall I think you could lift the mid to 3/4 black tones just to allow some more of the detail come through and let that detail in the red also pop. There is more detail you can extract in the neck and head, but just be carful not to blow or lighten too much the higher whites. Just a thought, but with the overall design try a 16x10 cropping from the top LHC down to current width. You don't say how much of a crop this is, so you might go out further?

1/3200SS you could have dropped to 1/2500, but even if you then dropped to ISO1250/1600 the IQ would not really benefit.

TFS
Steve

 

[Dave Goldberg]

Overall I think you could lift the mid to 3/4 black tones just to allow some more of the detail come through and let that detail in the red also pop. There is more detail you can extract in the neck and head, but just be carful not to blow or lighten too much the higher whites. Just a thought, but with the overall design try a 16x10 cropping from the top LHC down to current width. You don't say how much of a crop this is, so you might go out further?

TFS
Steve

Steve, here's the full shot with some of the changes we discussed. I think I prefer the original crop because I wanted to emphasize the spiral of the bird's back and neck, leading to the beak into the plumage. Also, I didn't care for the plumage sticking out behind it's rump, plus there is a branch that I removed for this shot... I had considered submitting this for a contest and object removal was against the rules so a close crop was my only alternative.

I got lucky with the snow fall in the refuge, because it not only provided this nice solid white background but it also helped accentuate the colors of the feathers.

• Canon EOS R7
• RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM
• ƒ/7.1
• 500mm
• 1/3200s
• ISO 2500
• Tue, 23 January 2024 2:02 PM
• DxO PureRAW 4

 

[Jason Bugay Reyes]

Taken last winter at the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Smyrna, Delaware. Driving out for the day I came across a pair of Sandhill Cranes just off the road. The refuge had some fresh snowfall (pretty rare in Delaware), which provided a nice white background. I had the shutter speed set pretty high in case they decided to take off, but the higher ISO level didn't seem to be much of a problem.

Canon R7 with RF 100-500, 1/3200", f/7.1, ISO 2500. DXO PR4 for DN and edited in DT 4.8

View attachment 230763

I like...

 

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Dave a beautiful portrait of the Crane !!
I do like the preening behavior captured .
Nice tone and details in the plumage , colors do work as well very nice .
I am not too excited about your chosen comp or crop , for me too tight on top and too much below ... just my 2 cents.
Very nice capture overall .

There seem to be an issue with BPN and the embedded color profiles and /or members are forgetting the importance of a sRGB profile attached to their posted files .... would be great if this issues could be resolved by the staff , or at least explained .

TFS Andreas

 

[Dave Goldberg]

Hi Dave a beautiful portrait of the Crane !!
I do like the preening behavior captured .
Nice tone and details in the plumage , colors do work as well very nice .
I am not too excited about your chosen comp or crop , for me too tight on top and too much below ... just my 2 cents.
Very nice capture overall .

There seem to be an issue with BPN and the embedded color profiles and /or members are forgetting the importance of a sRGB profile attached to their posted files .... would be great if this issues could be resolved by the staff , or at least explained .

TFS Andreas

Andreas, thanks for the feedback. I probably spend more time deliberating on a crop than anything else…

I’m pretty sure I embedded an sRGB in this shot. I will check.

 

[Andreas Liedmann]

As said ... there are numerous members that have the same "issue " , would be good to find a solution for that problem .

 

[Dave Goldberg]

I opened exiftool and both my original and the uploaded versions show sRGB as the color profile. How are you checking the files?

 

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Dave ...
this happens automatically when i download your file and i do open it in PS .
If there is no color profile attached , then PS does give me a warning ?

 

[Dave Goldberg]

Hi Dave ...
this happens automatically when i download your file and i do open it in PS .
If there is no color profile attached , then PS does give me a warning ?

Not to be pedantic, but how are you downloading the files? And does this happen with your own photos on BPN?