Snail Kite

[Tommy Rodgers]

Canon Mark IV, 70-200 2.8 II 2x II, 365mm, Hand Held, Manual, 1//1250, f8, ISO 500.

Thanks for the comments.

[Morkel Erasmus]

great light here and cool wingspread...nice to get the prey in the mouth too, though I wish it looked more towards you :)

[Steve Maxson]

A nice action shot with the bird carrying prey and a good first post, TR. I think a couple tweaks could make the image even stronger. I would suggest selecting the sky and darkening it a little - that would bring out more of the blue color. You might also consider some work on the eye - the large catchlight is giving it a rather glassy look - some careful cloning could improve that. :S3: Keep them coming.

[Randy Stout]

Tommy:

A bit welcome to BPN, a great place to learn and grow as a nature photographer !

Good comments from the guys.

I think that the framing could be improved by a significant crop from the right. All the negative space there doesn't add much for me. Generally it works best not to have the subject dead center.

The pose is good, although in a perfect world I would prefer the bill and snail not merge with the lower wing, it would stand out more.

The image quality seems a bit soft. Was this a significant crop from the original file?

Look forward to more! Please feel free to comment on what you like and don't like about other folks images, it is a great way to train your own eye.

Cheers

Randy

[Daniel Cadieux]

Good critiques by the boys...nothing to add except a big welcome to BPN!!:S3:

P.S. Randy, adding a thin black border around the image shows that there not as much space behind the bird than appears in the original post...

[Tommy Rodgers]

Good critiques by the boys...nothing to add except a big welcome to BPN!!:S3:

P.S. Randy, adding a thin black border around the image shows that there not as much space behind the bird than appears in the original post...

Thanks eeryone. All the critiques were very helpful and a forward step in my learning process. A question, if you please. The bird seems well to the right in my image, but does not seem so in the posted image. What can I do to get a more representative post of the image i see?

[Daniel Cadieux]

That is because the sky colour is very close to the forum's background colour and it makes it appear like you have a large area of room behind the bird (which of course you don't). Simply adding a thin black border as I did in my repost is the way to go to prevent that for images with very bright sky as the background.

[Randy Stout]

Tommy:

Sorry I missed on the framing issue. On my main monitor, the sky blended in closely enough with the background, making it look like the bird was centered. The line Daniel added is helpful when it is so close. I generally don't frame images for BPN, but will in this situation.

Cheers

Randy