just landed...

[annmpacheco]

Female Harrier who just touched down as we were shooting out the truck as a blind. Taken with Dave Salem and Gail B. a few weeks back. Processed PS, sharpened and selective sharpening around the head, added some , 2pts of saturation to warm things, added a few points of black which gave it needed contrast, NR and when cropped, a CW rotation

1Dx
600mm
ISO 1600
6.3
1/1600

[William Dickson]

Very nice Ann. Love the pose you captured with nice detail on the bird. Lovely eye contact. Nice POV. I may tone down the BG and FG slightly, which I think would make the bird 'pop' more. Well done on capturing this beautiful bird.

Will

[Ian McLachlan]

I like everything about this. Particularly that the face and beak are so clear which is difficult in these head on shots.

[Allen Sparks]

Hi Ann,
nice head on shot - Love those eyes. A fine pose too. Well captured.
Allen

[Alex Becker]

Love the pose and stare. I agree with Will about toning the BG and FG down a bit more. I like that we can see the tail a bit too. TFS

[annmpacheco]

Thanks everyone, per your suggestion about toning the FG and BG down a bit, how do i do that? I would like to give it a go and compare... Do I lasso the bird then select inverse and then handle the rest? If so whats next? I just don't have a sense of this so thank you for your help...
Ann

[Isaac Grant]

Love the raised wings and the direct stare. What a treat to be so close to a harrier. Only in my dreams. Ann there are many ways to adjust the exposure. You could literally move the exposure slider or the brightness slider. You could adjust the highlights as well. You could also do more fine tuned adjustments like raising or lowering the mid tones, or white point in levels. Or could do very similar adjustments with curves. Call me.

[Arthur Morris]

Inconceivably spectacular. I must ask, was this bird attracted to the truck in any way?

with love, artie

[annmpacheco]

Hi Artie, thank you for your comment. This harrier, another, and a ferruginous hawk were in the field . Harriers flying and ferruginous was sitting. There were coot feathers to the right of the harrier so she swooped in and then walked over to scavenge. So no attraction by Dave gail or I sitting in the truck and waiting for our opportunity. The next 4 frames show the folding of the wings and are all tack sharp, I’ll post one bc it was a cool position to capture, especially the tail feathers sticking straight up!

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks. Amazingly good luck combined with lots of knowledge. A lovely frame. On a second closer look it appears that it might need a bit of CW rotation. Try drawing a line with the Ruler Tool through the center of both pupils and see what Image > Rotate > Arbitrary has to say.

with love, artie