Osprey banking around the cliffs

[Joe Subolefsky]

Canon 7DII with 100-400II+1.4 extender. Shot at 560mm pretty much full frame,stretched the canvas a sliver across the bottom. ISO1250,f8@1600sec. RAW converted in DPP, resized,sharpened with PS. Thanks for looking and any input.

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[John Robinson]

Nice one Joe You just got the head angle in. Nice detail in the back without cluttering.
Good stuff
John

[arash_hazeghi]

great pose, I like the BG too, good exposure, I just wish you had a bit more head turn. to my eye the critical focus seem to be on the talons.

TFS

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

You made the best of the opportunity. Nice banking pose, but a slightly better head angle would strengthen the shot.
If the eye is not as sharp as the talons then you did some good pp work there. :)

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Joe a pleasing image from the tonal POV and i like the banking pose /eye contact .
But i agree the focus is somehow unclear and there is too much of motion blur in the subject for my liking .

TFS Andreas

[Raybel Robles]

I like the pose and the BG that goes well with the Osprey. I do agree with above comments that the focus do seems just a bit off and that a better HA would had improved the image.

[Joe Subolefsky]

In a perfect world I would have taken a little more HA also. The camera was spot on with the focus as you can see in the RAW screen shot. I love those talons and felt the eye was strong enough to offset a little extra sharpening of them. Thanks for the input guys.

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[Ákos Lumnitzer]

That's great Joseph. Hard to tell on web sized images sometimes I think. From the timeline looks like you've got some ideal approach shots. Should post one of those too! :)

[arash_hazeghi]

In a perfect world I would have taken a little more HA also. The camera was spot on with the focus as you can see in the RAW screen shot. I love those talons and felt the eye was strong enough to offset a little extra sharpening of them. Thanks for the input guys.

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Hi Joe,

Thanks for posting this.

Can you post a 100% crop of the head? I wonder why it looks soft. Although the sensor was placed on the head the actual focus plane appears to be on the talons.

In AI-servo modem often, the position of the focus sensor tells little about the actual focus plane

[Joe Subolefsky]

Ari I know what your saying. I am away from my main computer but I went ahead and emailed you the full RAW file.

[arash_hazeghi]

Joe kindly sent me the RAW file, Thanks Joe! This thread has great educational value.

Upon viewing the RAW at 100% I noticed where the problem is coming from, the focus didn't lock on the osprey and there is also a bit of motion blur. When the RAW is soft it is really difficult to salvage it, and Joe did a great job with his post processing and sharpening, but it is just not realistic to expect a better quality output in this situation.

this is the 100% crop from RAW

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I found an osprey shot in my files from several years ago that was taken under more or less the same kind of light, you can see the details in this 100% crop for comparison.

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It is difficult to make sharp files with a zoom lens and a TC when dealing with a low contrast subject against a varied BG, especially with the 7D. In this case, you would have gotten a much sharper file if you had used the bare lens, it would have given you faster SS to eliminate motion blur and the AF tracking would have also been more successful.

Without the TC, the bird would have been smaller in the frame but, if you get it sharp the detail and quality will come out significantly better.

hope this helps

best

[Joe Subolefsky]

Thanks Ari for taking the time and I agree with what you have wrote. To be honest my 500 was sitting right there on the 5DIII and I knew it would do a better job but I had just got the 400 and wanted to see what it would do with the extender attached on the 7DII. This was about a month ago and since then I'm not sure I've used the extender on it again but am really happy without it on the 7DII 100-400II combo.