First Image Posted - "Take Out"

[Deborah Kral]

My first image - taken on the fly and didn't have time to change camera settings. It was a gloomy day and I see lots of noise....

Canon Mark II
Canon 300mm f2.8 with 1.4X
AV 1/1600 f/11
50% crop


Debi Kral

[Gus Cobos]

A big warm welcome to the BPN family Deborah,
You did quite well for you first flight capture...I like this very much, especially the high key image...your subject is almost at the fly away point...it's best to capture them as they are flying to wards you or directly parallel with you...you display a good head angle and eye contact...I like the details in the feathers...a few points to keep in mind, your whites on a few areas in the under wing are running a tad hot...the focus point was not on the eye, thats why it's a little soft...you have some noise in the background, and the mid tones need to be adjusted...I took the liberty in making a few adjustments to your base image, by cropping just a little from the right side of the frame and added canvas on top on the bottom and a little to the left side...I adjusted your mid-tones, opened up the area around the eyes, and along the feather details to bring out the color more..I selective sharpened the eye and the feathers...see if this presents best to you...:)looking forward to your next capture...and once again welcome to the family...:D:cool:

[Desmond Chan]

I think it's basically pretty good. I would burn back a bit some details of the left underwing. And the bird just needs to be flying a bit towards your direction and you're all set as far as I am concerned.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Deborah - a big warm welcome to the BPN Family!!

Nice first post - I like the high key effect and the action and how you have left room up front for the bird to fly into - when you post include your full tech details including what exposure compensation you have used - doing so helps us help you and others can see exactly what you have done and might like to try it themselves.
As you mentioned it does look a little noisy - Gus has that covered.
Looking forward to more.

[Alfred Forns]

Big Warm Welcome Deborah !!!

Real nice capture Excellent critiques and fully agree !!! Do let us know the exp comp for the next one Makes it easier to evaluate. For this one I'm sure you had lots of plus comp to deal with the gloom !!! I like it a lot !!

[Kerry Perkins]

Hello Debi. Nice first post! I like the capture a lot. Techs already well covered, thank you for sharing! I like your avatar image also and would love to see it bigger. Hint, hint...

[Deborah Kral]

Thanks so much everyone for such a helpful welcome!

I have been primarily a horseracing photographer until I had the opportunity to participate in a fundraising photography program at the now defunct Hudson Valley Raptor Center where I met the subject of my avatar, the "coming out" of a 6 month old docent bird, a captive-bred snowy owl who absolutely captivated me. That image would make a good project because there is so much wrong with it LOL

The concepts of "room in front" and "fly away point" are common with horseracing photography - always giving the horse room to run into etc. This was unfortunately the only usable image since small trees blocked the flight series.

Thank you, Gus, for the re-post. I had selectively sharpened the eye but apparently not enough.

Al, I can't seem to locate the exp comp in the EXIF data but I believe it was +2/3 and I tweaked it in PS RAW.

Thanks again for the very valuable feedback - looking forward to playing with the assignments here and all the good info you folks so willingly share!

Debi