Flock Panoramic

Hi,

I was recently in Northern Germany for a few days to visit my sister-in-law and managed to get some photography in. I visited one of the Koogs near Husum (sorry can't remember the name) where there was a grass sea wall seperating a wetlands area from the sea. Late in the afternoon all of the birds flew from one to the other in groups mainly. I have a number of images with such flocks and thought I'd try something unusual (for me) with them to try and expand my knowledge. Does this work - I've cropped down to get rid of sky, trees etc and cloned out a couple of wings at the right hand side of the image. Comments are as always welcome. The technical details are:
- Camera: Canon EOS 1D Mk IIN
- Lens: Canon 500mm f4 IS + 1.4x
- Aperture: f7.1
- Shutter Speed: 1/320s
- ISO: 400
- Metering: Evaluative
- Exposure Control: Aperture Priority
- Camera Support: Gitzo 1325 + Wimberley Gimbal
- RAW Conversion: RawShooter Premium
- Post Processing: Levels, Curves, USM (FocalBlade), Mikes H&S Technique

Thanks for looking

Adrian

PS: I've identified these as Dunlin with my enormous lack of bird identification skills If they aren't could someone please tell me what they are - Thanks

I would guess these flock/flight shots are always going to be tricky to frame Adrian {something i hope to attempt for the first time, fairly soon}, and i feel you have managed a fine result with this grouping.

Generally speaking, i tend to find these types of shots more eye-catching if the flock is densely packed, and although this particular flock is fairly loosely packed, it still makes a pleasing image, to my eye!

Nice one

Alan

I really like shots like this, and I think that this must look great when big - to me it's a bit small for impact (but then again I am using a small laptop to browse ). There's a nice sense of dynamism too.

Mark

A really nice flock shot Adrian ans as Mark says, it must look great BIG

One tiny thing I might do if it were mine (I wish!) would be to remove the bird top right as he's just a bit too close to the frame edge - but that's only a minor thing

Thanks for the comments everyone - Andy I'll look in to your suggestion but my Cloning skills are only slightly better than my bird identification skills

Adrian

This works well for me - like the shape of the crop. Tristan

I like panoramic rendition and how birds are filling all of the frame. Great photo!

Cheers,
Marko

Tristan, Marko

Many thanks for the comments

Adrian

Works for me

As discussed this morning the contrast reduction has worked really well - I can't see any halos at all.

What I think works really well in this crop is the central band of Dunlin that are banking with 1 wing up and 1 wing down. They are forming a leading line sweeping you across the image, without this dynamisism (is that an english word ) the image wouldn't work quite so well. Also the top left and bottom right birds are crucial in filling the image window and helipng to lead the eye across the image

Lots to look at in this frame filling pano crop