Snowy

[Indranil Sircar]

I got this snowy earlier in the year. The bird kept it's eye on me all the time as it flew past. I used the frame with the stretched out wings. Settings were -

7D, Sigma 50-500mm @ 116mm hand held
1/2000 sec, f/8 Mode: Av Metering: Evaluative Exp comp: -2/3 ISO: 400

Adjusted for levels and saturation. Applied usm on the final web version. Your C&C will be appreciated...

[Lance Peters]

Hi Indranil - love the outstretched wings and that eye contact!!

Any NR on this - birds seems to be lacking in fine detail - having quite a smooth look to it or very large crop?

[Indranil Sircar]

Hi Lance, I did run a round of DeNoise. Let me check the original and I will repost.

[Julie Kenward]

Lance is right, that head turn and eye contact is fabulous, Indranil! Wouldn't mind seeing him sitting a little bit lower in the frame but that's just my personal opinion. You might also smooth out the light cloud streak right above his head.

That wingspread is to die for!

[Mark Young]

The wingspread really makes this image. I was thinking the same thing as Julie about the bird just a smidge so it has some more room to fly into.

[Alan Lillich]

Indranil,
Great job of a tough situation, a bird against a relatively plain sky. The spread wings are nice, the head turn is unique, the exposure looks good. I think a tighter crop might help. I took the space above the upper wing as a baseline, added canvas on the left to match, cropped from the bottom and right to match. Then I decided that Julie was right and added some canvas on the top.
Alan

[Indranil Sircar]

Alan, definitely love the new crop and the space on the top. Thanks for trying it out.

[Indranil Sircar]

Thanks all for your feedback. Appreciate it a lot. Here is another repost with similar crop as Alan's; removed the white streak above the head as Julie suggested. Also, got back a bit of the under wing details just as Lance pointed out...