Kestrel

[Lance Peters]

Out testing a Nikon 300 F2.8 VR.

D3
Nikon 300mm F2.8 With 1.7 X converter
F4.8
1/640TH
+0.3 EV
ISO 200

Handheld -- Large Crop

Comments welcome

[denise ippolito]

Hi Lance, Nice HA. I like the soft blue BG colors - not bad for HH and large crop! I love these birds yet have never been able to capture one- you may want to clone out the spot in the middle of the branch- but I think you got a good shot!

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Nice soft feel to it. Reminds me of your other pic you posted in AWF. Like the vignetting of darker blue in the top corners. And I kind of like the feather on the log, it gives it a real feel. Anyways, very nice!

[SeanKP]

Cracking head angle and nicely detailed for a large crop. Others will disagree but I'd maybe crop some from the top.

Cheers.

Sean

[Alfred Forns]

Lance you deserve a heavy dose of "twenty lashes" for the low ISO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't even bother using Noise Ninja till I'm around 1600 !!! The camera is brutally clean and in your image being mostly mid tones there will be little nose to start !!! If you are hand holding do give yourself latitude !!! The effective focal length was 510 but would be more comfortable at 1600 rather than 640

I like the pose and orientation very much Would just crop tighter on the long side and darken a bit. Will post my crop. btw might also play with the sky and gradients .... will come up with many interesting ideas !!!

[Gail Spitler]

Lance - I am wondering if the whites are almost blown? I'm looking at the cheek and the terminal band on the tail. BTW, there is a tiny bit of fluff or whatever on the top of the log, almost in the center of the image that you probably want to get rid of.
This is a striking pose, well captured.
Personally it seems like there is a lot of blue sky, so maybe a tighter crop (even to semi-pano) or gradient or ...
Cheers
Gail

[David Thomasson]

Very nice! If you have Photoshop, here's a simple darkening technique:


Select the sky -- the blue channel offers good contrast. Then invert that selection (Ctrl-Shift-I) so that only the bird and log are selected.
Open a hue/sat adjustment layer. Close the dialog box without making any changes. The selection will show on the mask (see below).
Change blend mode to multiply.
Multiply darkens, but it also increases saturation, so you might want to open the hue/sat dialog box and reduce saturation some. Here I dialed it back -25.

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/5088/huesatboxfe7.jpg

If the darkening effect is too heavy, simply lower layer opacity on the hue/sat layer. I left it at 100% here.

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/3371/kestrelvc0.jpg

[Harold Davis]

looks like there is a lot you could do with this one compo wise. i looked at the histogram and the whites are over a little. i like the way david was taking it...........but i think you already know that .......that's all i got.........

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Lance,
Did Mr. Al say anything about lashes......:D:eek:...I like the capture, you have good sharp details and I like the head angle on him...Mr. Forns' repost takes it over the top...good show...:cool:

[Oscar Zangroniz]

I like the pose and the bird Lance. David did a heck of a job with the image.
Congrats