Sunset fly-in Sandhill Cranes pushing the photo ISO limits

Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area in southern Arizona is a Sandhill Crane wintering ground. Went down for a look to see what I might gather image-wise. Was a little disappointed in the lack of water. I witnessed much more in the past. It did not seem to bother the cranes and there were thousands in the area. So, it’s all good!

Silhouettes against the sunset sky are always welcome in my camera. One thing to watch for is separation between the birds. If they overlap they become large unidentifiable blobs against the sky. Underexposing a bit enhances and allows the colors to be more true to your scene. 40-150mm Pro lens @ 150mm @ 300mm (Full Frame Field of View, FF FOV) 1/320th sec. f/2.8 ISO 6400

Sunset fly-in

One of the problems photographing the crane fly-in is they come back from their afternoon foraging in the fields after the sun goes down. Some come just at sunset and the bulk are returning after the sun has moved well below the horizon. I’ve had sessions in the past with older gear where all of these images were gone and not recoverable. The reason? High ISO was not as clean or recoverable in the past. Not so now. I’m using the OM-1 and as long as you do not way underexpose, as well as crank up the ISO images are quite usable. It does take some processing and noise reduction but the post work is well worth it.

This is the beginning of the story. Cranes are silhouetted against the distant mountains. Sun is still up… but not by much. 150-600mm lens @ 220mm (440mm Full Frame Field of View, FF FOV) 1/3200 sec. f/5.6 ISO 3200

Experimentation leads to…

There are only so many photos you can make of the cranes making their approach over the previous returnees. Which means it’s time to play and push the envelope of capture. In my case for this night it was high ISO. But that’s not all. Mix in some slow shutter speed and things can change radically. I really enjoy the combination of the static scene and birds on the ground and the blurring of the cranes flying in.

Cranes in flight render as abstract forms and shapes while the rest of the scene is more realistic with a super slow shutter. 40-150mm Pro lens @ 95mm 190mm FF FOV 1/8th sec. f/7.1 ISO 200

A slightly slow shutter speed gives just a hint of movement to the birds in flight. Sun was well below the horizon, requiring an ISO of 25,600. When I applied the noise reduction I wanted for the overall image some areas became way too blurry. See post-processing below. 40-150mm lens @ 70mm 140mm FF FOV 1/125th sec. f/7.1 ISO 25,600

Post processing

For the most part the post processing involved taming the big ISO noise. For this session, I used Denoise noise reduction in Adobe Camera RAW. I found it did a fine job but if that doesn’t work for you there are a number of noise reduction plugins available from Topaz, NIK filters, DxO and more. Most camera systems also have their own proprietary software which may work the best.

When reducing noise some areas became way too blurred compared to the rest of the scene. This image was processed for two levels of noise reduction. Layered and using a mask detail was brought back into soft places indicated.

Gear used

OM-1 Mark I (Mark II is available with an even better sensor) with the OM System 150-600mm f/5-6.3 IS ED lens. A second OM-1 body was fitted with the OM System M. Zuiko 40-150mm f/2.8 Pro lens. Note that the micro 4/3rds system has a doubling of the field of view of a full frame camera so the reach is pretty amazing. The 600mm comes out as a 1200mm FF FOV. During the day I added the MC 14 1.4X Teleconverter which results in an equivalent FF reach of almost 1700mm. Folks were checking out my LCD and wowed by how much detail could be brought in with the combination.

I’ll be sharing another article on photographing Sandhill Crane behavior when the was more light available. All images made with the 40-150mm Pro lens were handheld. Tripod for the 150-600mm lens was the FotoPro Eagles series E-7 gimbal carbon fiber model (I’m also a Fotopro Ambassador).

Yours in Creative Photography,

Bob

• Posted on November 20, 2024