Hungry Wedge Tail

[Ian McLachlan]

This youngster flew past me yelling out for a scrap of food from the parent. Where they are living the country is in drought so he /she took no notice of me at all, which is rare for these birds. Wedge Tails have a large wingspan 6/7 ft but are lighter than other raptors of this size. I would rather it was flying into the blue than out of it but there wasn't much colour around that day. As they get older they become darker so here we got a bit of colour in the bird. Had to use the tone curve a bit to bring out the slight blue in the sky.



179319

D5
500 FL VR
700MM
HH
1/3200
6.3
20%crop from orig.
All c& c very much appreciated

[Isaac Grant]

The pose, intensity and wing position are perfect. Love the open beak and the talons as well. These are huge birds so it must have been great to be so close. I think something went wrong in the processing. The shot looks to have had too much noise reduction applied and is quite smoothed over and lacking in fine feather details. You did not mention what ISO was. Was it very high and you needed aggressive NR? Otherwise this frame is just killer and I think you should revisit the processing to show more of the fine details. Front wing has a blue cast as well.

[gail bisson]

I agree 100% with Isaac. Something is very wrong with the processing.
To try and get the blue back in the sky I use LR and REDUCE the luminance of the blues using the HSL TAB in the develop module. Works wonderfully. If you google Jess Findlay Post processing for nature photographers- luminance slider on Youtube he does a terrific 7 minute video on how to restore the sky.
I would not use curves here and I wonder if that is why the beautiful eagle looks weird.
Please reprocess as this is a terrific image and will look great with somTLC
Gail

[Isaac Grant]

Not sure what happened with the feathers on the bird so did not mess with that but for a quick repost I did the following. Selected the bird and in HUE/SATURATION I selected the blue channel and lowered the blue cast on the feathers until it went about. Was at -85. Then I inversed my selection and open the NIK Software and went to White Neutralizer. That brings out some nice soft blue tones in the sky. You can change the opacity of it if it is too much but in the repost I left it at 100% just to show you what the filter does. If the sky was not that blue then just lower the opacity to match where it should have been. Let me know if you have any questions.

[Ian McLachlan]

Thanks to both for help.Will get to work on it again when I get back.

[David Cowling]

Can't wait to see the re-post. Superb capture of this fast moving bird. Perfect wing position and the open beak is a bonus. Well done.

[William Dickson]

Lovely flight pose, but agree with the NR on the bird..What was the ISO setting. Well captured Ian...Nice looking bird.

Will

[John Mack]

The screaming flight pose is great. The composition is nice as well.

[Dorian Anderson]

Very powerful image, calling pose is great! Isaac's desaturation of the blue on the bird looks good.

[Ian McLachlan]

179342


I've had another go at this and thanks to Isaac and to Gail I've found Jes Finlay's directions quite helpful. The bird looks darker here compared to Lightroom, but I hope you think colour and noise are better controlled.

Many thanks again.

[gail bisson]

Hi Ian,
This is better. I would back off on the decrease in luminance. I only ever go to -5 to -10. Noise is better and blue cast on wings is gone.
Glad you found the YouTube video and like it.
Gail

[Isaac Grant]

The cast is better now for sure but the bird looks too heavy now to me. Like too much dark has been added. Fine feather details are also not ideal.