Marsh Harrier

[Gerald Kelberg]

After a long absence from this Forum, I'm delighted to say I'm looking forward to participating here again. Many thanks to those who have assisted in sorting out the technical issues for me!

My post today is a male Marsh Harrier photographed in winter sunshine in Spain earlier this year. Photographed from a hide, he was brought in with bait (chicken scraps!) and had a hearty breakfast.

I like assertive posture and head angle as he claims the perch as his own - for a few moments, anyhow!

I'm now shooting with Sony gear, so this was shot with a Sony A9II, FE 200-600 at 329mm. Shutter 1/1600, F7.1, ISO 800

Post production in LightRoom.

I look forward to receiving your thoughts and comments.

Gerald

[Arthur Morris]

Nicely framed and cropped. Love the wing stretch; was it trying to get its balance?

You might want to try selectively sharpening the face on the JPEG.

Oh, and you are welcome :-)

with love, artie

[Jonathan Ashton]

Pleasing shot, I would suggest a slight lift in the mid tones and I also think a little more sharpening of all of the bird I would also consider lowering the brightness of the legs a little too - this reveals more detail in the scales. I like the image composition.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Gerald, nice to see you back and posting. I think I know where you were, not going to disclose, but lovely image.

Personally I think I bit more SS ie 1/2500 just to freeze everything and no issue on the ISO or IQ, always good to have something up your sleeve.

Overall the images is dark, opening up the whole image really helps and I might reduce the Red based on the histogram. Lightening the BKG and darkening slightly the FG creates a cool layering effect and brings out that lovely plumage you capture originally in the subject. If the left wing was also out I feel that it would have elevated the image overall, and agree with Artie, the subject needs additional sharpening, likewise the FG.

Gerald I have attached a RP to illustrate my points.

All the best.
TFS
Steve

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Gerald ... good to see you back in BPN business , a warm welcome from my side :bg3:
A very cool image to start here again .
I do like the original capture with the pose of the Harrier and the somehow aggressive posture .
The smooth BG did help to isolate the subject and perch .
Plumage details looking quite good , more can be extracted
Yes to more sharpening in the subject

Personally ... I do think the image is too dark overall and too much on the red/magenta side .... by knowing it is somehow difficult in scenes like this to get rid of the warmth that might have been present on location ! But will leave that to you as color is very subjective thing .

Gerald ... keep your stuff coming , always good to see different stuff from different photographers !!

TFS Andreas

[Gerald Kelberg]

Thanks to all for the comments and feedback. And thanks for the welcome. For a long time I have been processing my images for an audience of one, so I am very pleased to get your responses.

I think I lowered the highlights too much on this one, which flattened it out and left it looking flat and dark. I do tend to go for quite a dark image but this wasn't one of the best.

The 600K size limit is a lot smaller than I am used to using, and I think that demands more sharpening. The face of the bird was a bit soft so needed more sharpening.

I have been working up another image of the same sequence and will post that taking on board your comments.

Nice to be back!

Gerald

[Steve Kaluski]

The 600K size limit is a lot smaller than I am used to using, and I think that demands more sharpening. The face of the bird was a bit soft so needed more sharpening.

Hi Gerald, size should not make any difference to how you apply sharpening. If the original is sharp, then outputting to different sizes you should find that what you apply to one output, is the same to another. Providing you are sharpening direct to the cropped size ie 1920px wide, it should look the same as a file at an output size say 1200px you have applied the same amount.

I've PM you with some alternative locations to take a look at, if you haven't been to already.

Cheers
Steve

[Gerald Kelberg]

Thanks, Steve! That could be the error in my ways. I am sharpening a full size image and then exporting to the smaller size. Could be where I am going wrong. Thanks, G.

[Steve Kaluski]

Absolutely Gerald!

There are time where a ‘little’ pre sharpening on the raw is applied, not always. But sharpening must always be applied to the final output size, period.

Any problems drop me a line.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks, Steve! That could be the error in my ways. I am sharpening a full size image and then exporting to the smaller size. Could be where I am going wrong. Thanks, G.

100% incorrect approach. Do not sharpen and image until it is sized for a given purpose.

with love, a

[Steve Kaluski]

Sorry Artie, disagree.

Some Raws may need a small amount of pre sharpening before exporting to PS as a 16 bitt Tiff for further selective adjustments. Once you have you Master file (with all layers not flatten, but saved as a PSD FILE, you can then crop accordingly to whatever output size required and then sharpen for output, but Save As, to avoid overwriting the Master file.