Kestrel in flight

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

A kestrel takes off in Lonavala, near Pune, India.
1DX II
560mm
1/3200
f/8
ISO 1600

[arash_hazeghi]

love the pose and the stretched wings but the image isn't quite sharp especially the head area

TFS

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Thanks Arash, this was a 50% crop hence the loss in IQ and Sharpness. I should have added another round or two of USM.

[arash_hazeghi]

Thanks Arash, this was a 50% crop hence the loss in IQ and Sharpness. I should have added another round or two of USM.

Hi Sanjeev, the image is soft because of soft focus not because of 50% crop. a 50% crop is nothing on a 20 mega pixel camera. That leaves you with 10 mega pixels to work with. If the RAW was sharp it would look much better than this.

best

[arash_hazeghi]

to debunk this myth about cropping here is an image of the American kestrel. this image is only 25% of the original i.e. about only 5 mega pixels yet it is much better than yours because the focus was tack sharp. If the focus is soft the image has no cure unfortunately. You need to get the focus tack sharp and that's the challenge in BIF photography :)

Best

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Arash .... well you are basically right about your wording reg sharpness .
But this is not a fair example IMHO .
AS this does look flashed .... and the flash compensate for evtl blurring .

Just my thoughts .
Cheers Andreas

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Sanjeev nice shot .... agree with the others about sharpness and IQ . Also think image does look flat in terms of tonal range and color variation , think the base issue is a " wrong WB " !!! Get the WB to neutral and then tweak the colors ......to your taste .

TFS Andreas

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Arash .... well you are basically right about your wording reg sharpness .
But this is not a fair example IMHO .
AS this does look flashed .... and the flash compensate for evtl blurring .

Just my thoughts .
Cheers Andreas

you are wrong but only 100% :) . There was no flash :)

[Andreas Liedmann]

Ok Arash ...if it is only 100% :bg3::bg3: , than i say kindly sorry ! For the wrong interpretation of the light , was just the strong shadows that made me think the flash route .

[John Mack]

The pose is nice. Agree with bird doesn't look tack sharp. I would loose that leaf underneath the bird on the grass.