We went out again this year near Kearney, NE for the Sandhill Crane migration, and this year I ended up renting Canon's 300mm f/2.8 (non-IS) lens and the 1.4x Mark II teleconverter. On my 20D that gave me a 672mm f/4 (300mm x 1.4 extender x 1.6 crop factor); not too shabby. Initially I thought not having Image Stabilization would hurt me, but after looking at my shots from last year I figured I would be fine as long as the light was similar since most of them we 1/500 sec or faster. I am very glad I rented this lens.
Neither sunrise nor sunset were all that impressive this year, but for the rest of the time the cranes were very active and were dancing their hearts out trying to impress potential mates. One thing they do is to toss corn stalks and cobs into the air as part of their gimmick. We got to see a lot of personality come out this year, as you'll see with many of the shots below:
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| ISO 100 | f/8.0 | 1/250 |
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| ISO 100 | f/4.0 | 1/1000 |
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| ISO 100 | f/4.0 | 1/1000 |
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| ISO 100 | f/4.0 | 1/800 |
This pair cracked me up because it seemed they were arguing back and forth, perhaps vying for the attention of the same potential mate observing them both from the background:
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| ISO 200 | f/4.0 | 1/500 |
These two looked to be like two old men comparing fish stories, "I once caught a fish this big!" "Oh yeah, well I swear mine was this big!"
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| ISO 100 | f/4.0 | 1/500 |
And these next few also show them making their best efforts to impress the ladies, sometimes to an audience that would rather be elsewhere. I guess some things never change, even among different species:
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| ISO 100 | f/4.0 | 1/1000 |
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| ISO 100 | f/4.0 | 1/640 |
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| ISO 100 | f/4.0 | 1/640 |
Many of the other shots that I liked showed a simple elegance. I hope you like them.
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| ISO 400 | f/4.0 | 1/400 |
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| ISO 100 | f/4.0 | 1/1000 |
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| ISO 100 | f/4.0 | 1/800 |
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| ISO 200 | f/4.0 | 1/500 |
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| ISO 100 | f/4.0 | 1/4000 |
We also timed our trip to be on a full moon, and it happened to be at the
Apogee of the moon's orbit, which in layman's terms means it is the largest it will be for another 18 years (or something like that.) This provided some key opportunities to get some nice silhouettes:
