Peregrine up close

[Neil Nourse]

Was up on the north shore of Mass last weekend and on my way out to look for shore birds I saw this guy land with a bird for breakfast. I had to work my way around to his left to get the sun behind me. I started shooting on my knees with the tripod closed up. He just went about his business of eating the bird as I kept shooting and working forward. By the time I took this shot I was on the ground pushing the now collapsed tripod in front of me. When he finally finished up and flew off he was 30' in front of me.

MK III, 500+2X, 1/1250 @ f/8 ISO 800 Full frame, cropped down from top. Minor NR on background and sharpened.

Comments welcomed.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

That is close. Nice and sharp and the yellows are great.

[Grace Scalzo]

Good job making the most of this wonderful opportunity that we all dream of. Only crit that I have is I do see a bit of a sharpening halo, blues are tricky in that regard. I do think you can tease some more detail out of the neck feathers.

[Arthur Morris]

Enjoyed the story. I had a tame one with a pigeon at West End a zillion years ago with film. I am pretty sure that that bird is in the first book.

IAC, a fine image that was over-processed.... One of the main premises of Digital Basics (https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=252) is that too many folks make their images worse in Photoshop.... The idea is to make them better (not worser) :).

For the repost reduced contrast twice, desaturated the whole thing about four points and then the yellows a bit more. Cropped from the left to be closer to 2X3. Linear burn at 25% on the brightest WHITEs.

[Arthur Morris]

Looking at the repost I see that Grace is correct again--the image as also over-sharpened. So you win the triple header prize: over-SAT, too CONTRASTY, and over-SHARPENED....

[Dumay de Boulle]

1Lovely portrait and I like Artie's crop...The detail is very coarse, not sure if its from crop so a lack of detail then sharpening or over sharpening...Like the desaturated look. Exposure looks good...TFS!

[Neil Nourse]

Hey guys, thanks for the critique.

Artie, thanks for the edit. I will start back at the raw file and re work....

[Arthur Morris]

Hey guys, thanks for the critique. Artie, thanks for the edit. I will start back at the raw file and re work....

Good plan. Is this a large crop?

[James Salywoda]

Gorgeous portrait Neil! I like your choice of composition.

[Daniel Cadieux]

What an opportunity you had, and it sounds like you used good fieldcraft too. Great portrait, and Artie's repost is very nice. Hope we will get to see more of this series, including the meal :S3:.

[Neil Nourse]

Re-post with a bit lighter hand in PP
What do you think??

[Arthur Morris]

Fan-frigging-tastic. I especially love the toned down blue sky.

[RakeshDhareshwar]

The repost is over the top !!!!