Sandhill Crane and Moon

© Greg Downing Photography all rights reserved.

Sandhill Crane, Bosque del Apache, San Antonio, NM

This image was taken yesterday morning, two days after the full moon and our last couple of hours at the refuge. It is a straight shot and not a digital composite. The moon set was well after sunrise, which resulted in it being slightly muted. This also provided enough light to illuminate a bird, as well as freeze its motion without panning. Panning with the birds and freezing the moon may have also been possible, but would not give me enough focus control to ensure everything remained in focus and it would have also proved difficult to control the composition.

I locked the composition on the tripod, without a bird in the frame, and manually focused on the foreground. Not having my hyper focal distance chart with me, I used the DOF preview button to ensure that the moon would be in focus, while keeping a reasonable working distance for a bird to fly into the frame. I knew my working area, and would not shoot if a bird flew outside of that. Since the wind was calm most of the birds were taking off, and flying, well below the distant mountains. Moving further away from the take-off location gave me a better chance of getting a bird above the mountains. Each time a bird, or birds, would fly into the viewfinder I would hold down the shutter button and let it rip (thanks to digital). Never being sure of the optimal wing-position of the subject, I used my 1D, instead of my 10D, because I knew the 8FPS would give me a much better chance at getting what I wanted. I filled a card and will be keeping just a few images, including this one. I have others with multiple birds, but they are smaller in the frame. This one was right at the threshold of being outside my working area.

Please forgive the limited amount of detail presented in this small JPEG sample.

Comments welcomed!

EOS 1D, EF 7-200/2.8 IS @ 200mm, 1/1250 @ f8, ISO 250.