Geese on the wing

[John 2]

No PP trickery here. Each bird is different and I was lucky in catching them at the right moment for the formation. It's an oldish image that I have never been quite sure of but eventually I quite liked it when I converted it to a mono IR image. Comments welcome.

[xpatUSA]

Nice touch with the IR. The greenery loses contrast thereby bringing the birds out more.

[Shadowman]

Nicely done.

[Geoff F]

Very good

[dRikky]

That's a perfect capture! Nice

[selig1656]

Terrific composition and it is done well with the tones.

[Bob44]

Nice photo and good timing!

[FootLoose]

Nice work, John. I'd be tempted to fill in the gap in the squadron leader's wing by cloning from another bird. Also possibly try to separate the last two with the move tool and a little bit of cloning.

[John 2]

Thanks all for your comments. I can see what you mean Greg and it would be easy to do but I guess I have been conditioned by competition rules that say that Natural history images shouldn't be manipulated - not that his will find it's way into any comps.

[Tom Barry]

A lovely image.

[John 2]

Thank you Tom.

[FootLoose]

Thanks all for your comments. I can see what you mean Greg and it would be easy to do but I guess I have been conditioned by competition rules that say that Natural history images shouldn't be manipulated - not that his will find it's way into any comps.

Fair enough, John. We all have a personal "rules" too about what "manipulation" is acceptable.

[billtils]

Super capture that benefits from the processing. I like the composition as it is.

[billtils]

Fair enough, John. We all have a personal "rules" too about what "manipulation" is acceptable.

And in general, fair enough comment, Greg. However, John specifically mentioned the nature category in competition work, and there the various bodies that define the genre prohibit manipulations that alter the truthfulness of the image. In that context, cloning in an extra bird would not be allowed (but the IR conversion would).

[John 2]

Thanks for the additional comments.

Greg, my comment wasn't a rebuttal. More a comment on my ingrained habits. For year, I was a competition nut. Not these days though but old habits die hard.

[FootLoose]

Thanks for the additional comments.

Greg, my comment wasn't a rebuttal. More a comment on my ingrained habits. For year, I was a competition nut. Not these days though but old habits die hard.

Hi John,
I didn't read your post as a rebuttal. I understood you to mean exactly what you have said here, and I thought my reply conveyed as much - "Fair enough".

I noticed Bill's post recently but even though he quoted me I couldn't see how it is relevant to what I wrote because I did not suggest "cloning in an extra bird", so I decided that he was adding to the discussion for the benefit of anyone who might drop by here in future so that they didn't think we were advocating cheating in a competition.

[billtils]

Hi John,

I noticed Bill's post recently but even though he quoted me I couldn't see how it is relevant to what I wrote because I did not suggest "cloning in an extra bird", so I decided that he was adding to the discussion for the benefit of anyone who might drop by here in future so that they didn't think we were advocating cheating in a competition.

That's correct Greg! Also to caution any newbies to Nature (or more critically, Wildlife) competitions to be aware of the rules.