![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/white-faced-ibis-5264-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"white-faced-ibis-5264-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nGroups of birds in flight are hard to photograph well but I like the way this one turned out.<\/p>\n
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1\/1250, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon 7D Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n It includes 17 White-faced Ibises flying low over the Great Salt Lake. The warm early morning light gave the very dark ibises a golden glow, all of the birds are sharp, I got a variety of interesting wing positions and considering how many birds there are I have pretty good separation of individuals. I didn’t have to cut off any birds at the frame edge to get a composition that works for me and even the interloping gull with its reflection serves the purpose of anchoring the ibis flock to the almost mirror-like surface of the very shallow water.<\/p>\n For me there’s some visual tension in the image, for two reasons.<\/p>\n My eye keeps looking for ibis reflections on the water that just aren’t there. In particular I expect to see at least a partial reflection from the ibis directly above the gull, the one with its wings down. It appears to be only inches directly above the gull and since the gull has a distinct reflection it seems like that ibis should too, at least a partial one. It must be lacking a reflection because the flock is closer to us than it appears to be.- a spatial distortion resulting from using a long focal length, effectively 1120mm in this case.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The morning sun was somewhere behind me when I took the photo so I also keep looking for at least some bird shadows on the water behind the ibises but they aren’t there either. I can’t explain that one quite so glibly but whatever the cause I find the tension of both little visual mysteries interesting rather than detrimental.<\/span><\/p>\n On the other hand it’s ‘only’ a flock of birds. The eye of the beholder I guess…<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Groups of birds in flight are hard to photograph well but I like the way this one turned out.<\/p>\n