The head shot – Red-crowned crane

Usually when you use a long lens, you want to try to isolate your subject. You can also have fun with a long lens to isolate part of your subject. In this case, I wanted to highlight just the head of the red-crowned crane. 

There are many every day shots of the red-crowned crane. It is probably the most popular bird in Japan, drawing thousands of people a year to photograph it. I liked the light and the trees were far enough in the background to give me a great out of focus background. This was taken at the Tsurui Ito Tancho Crane Sanctuary with the Nikon D5 and Nikkor 800mm.