Greater Spotted Eagle

[Mital Patel]

Greater Spotted Eagle
(Aquila clanga)
Thol Bird Sanctuar, Gujarat, INDIA


March 13, 2011, 8:48am
Taken with 1D Mark IV, 500 F/4, 2x TC
1/640, f/11, ISO 640 @ 1000mm


I made many images at different distance gradually going from far to near step by step in car. The fellow was absorbing heat in the morning. The place is so disturb as said before getting in range of 500 is not possible except you have extreme luck. Working so much with 1D Mk IV with 2x tc it was good choice to go with same setup and it proved good over bean bag on car window.


Removed some poo from trunk and this is almost very lightly cropped (this time was lucky to have almost full frame)

1. Does the spot (catch light) in eye a distraction ?
2. Is 3:2 crop here work well ?
3. Is there extra space i left on right ?

Your feedback and suggestions make me grow so feel free to post any

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Very nice look back pose, nice soft light and perfect dof. Bg is very nice too.
I like the slanted perch - only nit is the freshly chopped off branches.
Lovely details. Very nice image Mital.

[Alan Murphy]

Love the image for the head turn, BG and comp. Agree with Sid on the cut limbs.

[Don Lacy]

Like the others love the majestic pose and comp with the diagonal line created by the perch and the nice OOF BG. The image as posted lacks contrast and is washed out it needed a few points of black added to it and a small S curve which I did here to illustrate the difference it makes.

[Mital Patel]

thanks a lot don for the improvise version. it looks really better.
Really sad everytime we see eagle it will be either on poo perch or cut limbs. cuz the sanctuary is under irrigation authorities and forest dept. which allows villagers to cut trim trees time to time.

nothing much we can do on that part. except we digitally do something :(

[Grace Scalzo]

What a beauty Mital and Don hit some good points. I try to keep my images as natural as possible in camera. But once in a while there is something bad in them that I could not have helped, such as you have here with those cut limbs. In this case, I personally would clean them out of the image as the bird and background are too good to not.

[Arthur Morris]

Repost rocks. Losing the cut-off stubs with a few Quick Masks would not be too difficult.... Great look-back over the shoulder head angle.

[Mital Patel]

Here is i've clipped some shadow blank from levels and added little s curve what don suggested.
also tried to clone those cu-offs.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Wow, very nice work on the repost, Mital. Huge difference!

[Chris Kotze]

The repost looks great, super contras colours and I like the comp and pose.

[gail bisson]

The last repost is stunning. I like the lookback pose and the diagonal line of the perch.
Gail

[arash_hazeghi]

great image, nice pose and good details. Def the repost with more contrast and w/o limbs. Excellent

[Don Lacy]

Mital, The repost rocks well worth the effort to bring it to its full potential.

[Tom Redd]

The repost takes this up a notch for sure. Good suggestions, Don. Only nit for me is I would consider a vertical crop as the extra space doesn't really add to this nice image. Just my 2 cents.
TFS

[yogesh_puranik]

superb looking back pose with lots of details..nice one bhai

[Mital Patel]

Dear Tom

Thanks for your suggestion. Initially i had the same thought of making vert. i have another frame with slight different head turn on vert comp. I just made a vert comp from same image hope you like it.

Personally i find horizontal better for this as it gives little more environment feel and power to image.

[Tom Redd]

Mital, very nice with either crop as you have a wonderful image here. Thanks for the repost, I might opt for the vertical crop, but to each his own, again, both crops work. I do like the cleaned up branch stumps if you go landscape ratio.

[RAM MALLYA]

I liked the vertical compo Mital bhai and i do agree on the Contrast part . A slight reduction of brightness and addition of contrast did really improve the image details .