red tail

[Charles Senkus]

shot this a couple weeks ago 1/1000-f/8 iso400 0comp 100-400L any and all comments welcome

[David Hemmings]

This is certainly a good pose and a frame filling image. However, I see a lot of noise in the bg and very little detail in the bird's feathers and face. Is this a large crop?

[Fabs Forns]

Hi Charles, big welcome to BPN!!

Looking forward to helping you improve your skills.
As David pointed out, it looks very noisy. You light angle is also off, rendering part of the face in the shade. Where was this made?

[Jim Poor]

Hello and welcome aboard!

Starting with a better image is always preferred, but there is plenty that can be done to help this one out. Starting from the RAW or even the original JPG (RAW, RAW, RAW ;) ) better results can be reached, but tell me what you think of this:

I first ran NR really strong on just sky. I wasn't happy still, so I ran the blur tool over it until it pretty much averaged out. Selected the sky as my color and filled in the spots I missed with the selection.

Then I made a duplicate layer with just the bird and used Multiply as the blending option. I dropped the opacity on that layer down to about 20%. Then I did a mild Shadow Highlight adjustment on the bird alone followed by some selective dodging on the shadow side of the face, body, and in some areas under the wings.

Looking at it now, I should have gone on to a curves adjustment on the bird to get back a little of the pop lost in the dodging, but I haven't had breakfast yet and my mind isn't working real well ;)

Hope this helps.

[Charles Senkus]

this image was shot in a field near berwick pa. the hawk was sitting in a tree about 75 yds off the road i took quite a few shots of him while sitting there then he took off and i moved the car to follow a bit then he decided to circle over the car about 50' or so off the ground. this was taken with a 20D and a new 100-400L which i sent back to cannon for focusing issues right after i shot these because most were out of focus.stats-tv-1/1000/sec--av-f/8--evalutive metering--ex comp 0--iso400 --raw--al focus- it was croped quite a bit. my photoshop skills are poor--what can i say that is what i need to learn i guess? i was out today with the adjusted 100-400 on the 40D and i have many images that i think would be great but!!many are not sharp and to tell the truth i'm getting very frustrated. is it that often that you miss instead of hit with this type of gear?
P.S. i made simular changes to this image and entered it in a contest and it went down in flames.

[Jody Melanson]

The 100-400 is a great lens up to about 25'. Further than 25' and the quality drops off quickly as you have seen.

[John Chardine]

In my experience, the Canon 100-400mm lens has relatively narrow tolerance and it is easy to make a low quality image with it. First the size is deceiving- it's quite a compact lens and remember on your 20D at 400mm it's the equivalent of 640mm. When the lens was new to me I tended to use it as if it were a 300mm lens and this just does not work. You have to respect the focal length and mount in rock solid. I have also found that it is very sensitive to poor quality filters and any refraction in front of the lens caused by an air temperature gradient. For example it does not work at all well pointed out of a warm car window on a cold day.

I would recommend doing some bench tests with the lens to see what you are dealing with. You don't need a test card for this, just a good, sharp subject. Email me for the method I use to bench-test if you like.