Red-tailed Hawk Attacking

[Scott Eggimann]

What it must look like for a mouse.

Testing out the legs on my 500mm f/4 lens. I cannot believe I waited so long to pick up a used one. Minimum focus distance (MFD) for this lens is 14.8 feet. This shot was at about 15 feet as I quickly lost auto focus after this shot. I was pretty well hidden in my $40K heated blind, but he knew something was up and did a flyby to check me out. The only crop to this picture was to center him in the frame. For a quick second, I wondered if I was under attack and if I'd end up a story on Fox News.
He silently passed 3' feet over my head.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7577/15981916320_faff78d384_z.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/qmguVo)Hawk Attack (https://flic.kr/p/qmguVo) by Critters from My Backyard (https://www.flickr.com/people/32975820@N00/), on Flickr

[Satish Ranadive]

Scott,
Heartiest Welcome to BPN,
Very nice first image of incoming hawk, which is difficult to shoo. Image is too small to give any critics. You can upload 1200x800 pix size.
If you don't mind will you send the RAW file to me?
satishranadive_n@yahoo.com.

Regards,
Satish.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Welcome to BPN Scott!!

What an experience! I love the incoming pose here, and the stare is pleasantly intense. The BG is what it is, no choice about it here, but if mine I'd be tempted to lower the luminosity of the brighter areas of blue. You could also experiment with a tighter crop since the one wing is already cut. Hard to tell from the small size, but the hawk looks to be properly focused on the eyes.

Looking forward to more from you!

[Scott Eggimann]

Larger image as requested. I also reduced the luminosity of the blues.

http://www.scotteggimann.com/Pets/Critters/i-CXZwCZx/0/X3/Hawk-Attack1200x800-X3.jpg

[Satish Ranadive]

Looks great Scott.

Regards,
Satish.