Secretary bird

[Gerhard Weldhagen]

A portrait shot of a Secretary bird taken in Rietvlei Nature Reserve, South Africa, during April 2018. The bird was hunting small prey in tall grass and a completely clear shot was not possible. Trying to remove the grass distractions leaves the image a bit overcooked and unnatural, so we will just have to live with the OOF grass stem across the face for now. Canon 1dX II, 300 f2.8 II + 2xTC III, 1/1000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200, manual mode, handheld from vehicle. Processed with PS CC.

Thanks for looking and your valuable comments.

[Colin Driscoll]

Great portrait, love the shadow of the lashes in the eye.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Gerhard, I like the image a lot, love the shadows of the eye lashes across the eye. S and H, esposure, and detail look good. Lovely complimenting background. Thank you for sharing.

[Jonathan Ashton]

A powerful image, details look good, I agree the OOF grass is a minor distraction but those eyelashes make up for it!

[Steen Torner]

A nice portrait with a good background and the head angle of the bird is fine.
Amazing how detailed the head is and the eyelashes (as mentioned by others) are just fantastic.
I don't mind the grasses as long as the head is in the clear.

Regards Steen

[Isaac Grant]

I really like the close up look of this shot and the beautiful golden grass. I agree that the grasses in front of the bird are not ideal. On the 5k imac the bird looks a bit soft and I wish more of it was in the depth of field. You had plenty of light as you shot at ISO 200. I think you would have been beneficial had you stopped down to say f9 or 10 and upped your ISO to 640 or 800 so that more of the bird would have been in sharp focus.

[Debapratim Saha]

Beautiful portrait,love the eye with eyelash shadow.

[Arthur Morris]

Very sharp and I love those lashes!

with love, artie

[John Mack]

Nice view you caught here. Great background. Good detail.

[Gerhard Weldhagen]

I really like the close up look of this shot and the beautiful golden grass. I agree that the grasses in front of the bird are not ideal. On the 5k imac the bird looks a bit soft and I wish more of it was in the depth of field. You had plenty of light as you shot at ISO 200. I think you would have been beneficial had you stopped down to say f9 or 10 and upped your ISO to 640 or 800 so that more of the bird would have been in sharp focus.
Thanks Isaac, you make valid points but I failed to mention that I was also driving the vehicle while slowly following the bird along the road verge. That, together with trying to keep the sun angle makes things a tad more complicated and I settled for camera settings that worked. In hindsight it is worthwhile to have some thoughts on improvements for which I am grateful.

[gail bisson]

Lovely portrait except for that pesky grass across the face.
I am puzzled by your choice of ISO. I never have an ISO of less than 640 because I always like to have as much of a F stop as possible. An ISO of 800 or 1000, which the 1 DX handles beautifully, would have given you an F stop 9 or 10 and would have given you more DOF.
My rule of thumb when doing a portrait is a minimum of f 8- I will sacrifice SS or ISO to get as much DOF as possible.
The lashes are great ( reminds me of hornbill's eyes and lashes) and the light and BG colors are excellent .
Gail

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Gerhard, strange seeing a 'visitor' posting an image just down the road from me. Great sighting, as these guys are scarce at Rietvlei, especially wandering across those grassy plains. Great HA, and love the eye lashes across the eye. In Africa we have to live with our BG's, so Im fine with the grasses. Killer upper BG makes up for it. Did you get to see the Cheetah's.

[Gerhard Weldhagen]

Hi Gerhard, strange seeing a 'visitor' posting an image just down the road from me. Great sighting, as these guys are scarce at Rietvlei, especially wandering across those grassy plains. Great HA, and love the eye lashes across the eye. In Africa we have to live with our BG's, so Im fine with the grasses. Killer upper BG makes up for it. Did you get to see the Cheetah's.
Thanks for your kind comments Stu. I saw the cheetahs but they were not interested in a photo session and rapidly disappeared into tall grass. Bummer.