Rough-legged Hawk

[Raymond Barlow]

Hamilton Ontario, Canada

D300 \ 200-400 VR
1/2000s f/4.0 at 400.0mm iso250

hand held, natural light, 70% of ff

un-cloned version below

[Raymond Barlow]

a little cloning helped the first shot a little... Mike Lentz's idea!

Next time I will send you the file Mike!

[Tony Whitehead]

Great cloning job, Raymond. Different leg poses now make sense. Definitely worth the effort. Image looks a little flat and maybe could use a contrast boost and darkening of the sky. I am on a crummy monitor at work so not sure if this is a valid assessment.

[Gary Dumer]

**** of a job Buddy, Stunning Image!!

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Man, that is a big clone job. If it were mine, I would have thrown it into the DCB - digital compost bin. :D

I admire that patience of yours with the processing! :) The end result is very appealing. I was about to ask why the strange talon positions, but then scrolled down. :)

[Doug Brown]

Every now and then you get an image worthy of some serious cloning; this is definitely one of them. Great looking image! Sharpness and detail are excellent. I would darken the sky just a little.

[Jim Fenton]

Well...I am sure as heck impressed Ray.

I wouldn't have had the patience and perhaps the skill to pull it off like you did!

[Raymond Barlow]

ok guys, I want to thank you for the nice comments... but...

imo, the re-make is not that good,.. just spent a good 45 mins on this one... much more realistic... I am not much for major rebuilds like this, I would rather go out and re-shoot for something better., but it took me 3 yrs for a good chance at this cool species, so I figured I might as well give it a go.

Also, this is the first time I have used the magic wand tool in pscs., very cool deal., and it really helped me with the sky. (might even try it again!)

take care.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

That last one rocks Raymond, really does. Three years waiting but worth it if you asked me. :)

[Mike Lentz]

Thy clone master has set down the camera and started PP work! The time and effort cleaning up this image was well worth it, Ray! The final image is very nice.

Now since we should post a nit... I found one lil' one... on our left hand side (birds right) a primary feather tip or two appear to have been lightened during the cloning expeditition... darken those and waa laa!

[Doug Brown]

Good eye Mike. The repost is a big improvement but I would still darken the sky a bit.

[Tony House]

Well worth the effort in cloning out the branches, looks superb....

Nice work.
Tony