Hodded Mergensar in Flight

[Sachin Saraf]

This was taken last year in Dec.

Exif data
Camera Canon EOS 7D
Exposure 0.001 sec (1/1600)
Aperture f/6.3
Focal Length 700 mm
ISO Speed 400
Exposure Bias 0 EV

In PP - Selective sharpening, Lens Blur on BG, Added canvas in front.

Critics and comments welcome.

110150

[Randy Stout]

Sachin:

I seldom see a picture of these guys flying, congrats on capturing him.

Nice full down wing position, I like the his crest position, good colors, interesting BG.

He is angled a bit away from us.

I would consider some eye doctor work to improve the apparent sharpness of the eye. The reflection often makes it look less sharp than it really is.

If you have Color Efex Pro, I would try the detail extractor to tease out a bit more detail in the whites. If not, my next choice would be a multiply layer applied to the whites.

Cheers

Randy

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Sachin, excellent flying posture, and nicely separated from the BG. Good to see the trailing droplets too. The vertical strand behind the tail is a touch distracting which could be blended into the rest of the BG, and what a pity he is just past you. Always great to capture anything in flight.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Sachin, these are tough to capture in flight. You've frozen him quite well. Against that BG.....awesome AF job. I've hard time pulling that off with my 40D.

[Dave Leroy]

Very well done on a tough shot. I really like the down wing pose and nice tail feather display. I agree that too bad the striking pose occurred just past you. I like Randy's suggestions on teasing more details out of photo as it does seem not quite sharp.

[Sachin Saraf]

Thanks everyone...I will try to blur the BG to tone down distracting BG elements.

a high flying eagle created havoc and this one took off and flied in direction away from me...

Dave I was holding back on sharpening front to avoid issue with noise. I will give it a try to run another round of USM

[Frank Schauf]

Very nice flight pose and bg colours.