Skagit Snow Geese Against Gray Sky

This is my second post. I thought it would be easier than my first. Particularly in light of the GOOD NEWS that we can have our pictures a bit larger. I found it more difficult to sharpen without oversharpening, yet sharpening is needed because the geese blend with the sky.

The cloudy day made soft light, but I struggled to get the geese to stand out.

Canon 20D
Canon 300 IS 2.8 with 1.4 TC - focal length 420
ISO 200
Ap priority at 6.3 1000th,

Janet B

Cool, Janet! It's sort of an abstract, in a way, and I'm sorta wanting to see the birds closer up. I'll bet you could keep the same aspect ratio, crop out a lot of gray and get closer in on the birds.

Thanks Mark. I did try a closer crop because it seemed sharp enough to do so, but bringing it closer made it obvious the the first bird on the right has a blurry wingtip. Farther out that blends in okay, but close it was distracting because everything else is sharp. Does that make sense? Also, I sorta liked how the shape of the group - their placement with diagonal alignment -makes for an interesting negative/positive space aspect to the frame. It took me forever to get them do to that you know...

Janet B

Very nice work - I like the close group of birds there..

Janet,
This is a really nice grouping here. Although not a bird photographer myself, I've been wanting to capture some of these graceful birds. All in all, really nice image!