Back Bay Osprey

[John Guastella]

This is my first post, after having lurked here for a few months. This image of a perched osprey was taken yesterday afternoon (17:44, PDT) at the Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve in Newport Beach, CA. Believe it or not, the sun was out!

Canon 7D with the 400mm f/5.6 lens, tripod-mounted. 1/800sec at f/8.0; ISO 400; manual.

RAW conversion with ACR 6.1 and standard PP in Photoshop Elements.

To deal with a small, but recalcitrant, hot spot on the bird's chest, I cloned in some feather texture from an adjacent region.

Thanks for looking!

John Guastella

[Dave Blinder]

Nice sharp image John, techs look good too. I might wish for a 2 shot vertical stitch on this one to show a bit more habitat.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Welcome to BPN, John! Good move to post and it is a very nice one. Sharpness, pose and eye contact look very good. I might crop a bit off the left and maybe add a bit canvas at the top. Keep them coming and please also take the time to comment on a few other images!