Sandhill Takeoff

Perhaps a small crop from the top and maybe a slight reduction in the bright highlights. Nice photo. Looks sharp enough but hard to tell at this size.

I like the patterns the cranes make across the screen, Richard. A little less dof so the trees blurred out and emphasized the cranes more would appeal to me better. The cranes look pretty sharp, though it's hard to tell at this size image. I think maybe a panorama presentation would emphasize the birds more. The pattern of the branches against the blue sky pulls my eye away from the cranes.

Richard,

I echo the comments & critiques that Dennis gave you.

I'll add though that it would help us to give you more thorough critques if you supplied all of your techs including aperture, shutter speed, ISO, etc. Some of the light colors here look blown but without the techs I can not tell you why.

Thanks for the great feedback and here is the photo info that I should have supplied. Shutter speed 1/400, f stop 8 and iso 200. The trees do stand out in the background which is distracting. How would I eliminate that and make the birds jump out? Thanks

I go along with Dennis and Mia on this one Richard. Also, you might reduce the brightness on the entire image just a bit, it is a bit bright IMO. To make the BG blur you need to used a smaller f setting such as f/5.6. That setting would have increased your SS too helping you stop the cranes and get a nice sharp image of them. A setting of f/5.6 and a SS of 1/800s might have worked nicely here although I like the get my SS up over 1/1000s for flight shots. Be aware that losing DOF would also make it more difficult to get all the cranes sharp given their different distances from the camera.