photoartflightSnow Geese FlyBy – 2 Shots Combined
We went to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge outside of Cambridge, Maryland over the weekend. I had seen on their website that they had a significant number of Snow Geese on the refuge. We used to see huge amounts years ago, but for the last 4 or 5 years they hardly had any during the Winter. I asked and was told they moved to an area off shore. We were planning to go for the Bald Eagles so I was looking at their bird count list on their website and noticed a significant number of Snow Geese listed (Thousands) on February 3rd. I believe the number over the weekend was way above that number. I did a 50 shot panorama in 2 sections with a 400mm lens with a 1.4X Teleconverter that ended up at 150 inches long crowded with masses of Snow Geese and I still did not get them all in. I had to do it in 2 sections because Photoshop was struggling with half at a time. I can put it up here, but it would be a very long narrow image if posted here.
It took so long to do a series of large panoramas, that I did not get a chance to adjust & post huge takeoffs of thousands in front of us. But I will get to those soon.
The featured image here is a two shot handheld small pano as they were flying by me. I shot a series and quickly moved the lens as I was shooting for a small inflight pano. Had to retouch the overlap a little but overall it works. I also tried a multi-shot, timed so I got a series with the same foreground, but that looked funny because the foreground repeated when I made the pano. I liked it better than a wider view with a wider angle lens because the birds are larger with more detail. I just had to touch up the overlap some.
1 section of a 50 shot panorama
photoartflight 
Wow!
Thanks! This was just a very small section of a few that flew by towards the end. I have approximately 3000 other shots I did not get to yet. Work gets in the way, plus I sent 5 hours working on a 50 shot panorama (over 300 inches) of them in the water making a lot of noise! I would post it, but on the blog it would be a very long and narrow in height and it would just have a lot of white little specs in the water. It is amazing to see thousands lift off right in front of you!
WOW – so many Snow Geese!
Thanks! It is fun to watch and hear as they take off in mass!