Peregrine Falcon...Captive

This is Frejya, a captive Peregrine Falcon at The York Center For Wildlife here in Maine. She is used as an ambassador to kids in school classrooms to encourage them to become involved in the outdoors. I photographed her last Friday, yesterday, after the 4th annual fundraiser breakfast.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II N, Shooting Date/Time 5/2/2008 10:19:31, Shutter Speed 1/250Sec. Av(Aperture Value) F11, Evaluative metering, Exposure Compensation -1/3, ISO 640, Lens EF300mm f/2.8L IS USM, Focal Length 300.0 mm. On Gitzo Tripod with Wimberley 2 head from 12 feet away. Comments always welcomed.<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->

Excellent image and composition Grady,
Love the colors and details on your bird with great eye contact...:D

unusual to see the back in a portrait, but I think it works ever so well here.

A beautiful image.
Had a real good look to see if any nits but IMO positively none.
Great work.

Grady
I got an image almost identical to this one last year with a captive Peregrine. I really like the pose and the chance to see the feather detail on the back. Good composition and great use of DOF. Well done.

Ohhh, the Peregrine Falcon is so beautiful. Nice portrait, well balanced. Artie has a trick for not burning out the light parts of the beak, in this photo the highlights may be unnecessarily burnt out. If you can't find the trick by Artie or on this page somewhere, pls write to me. It's a very good way of not burning out things when you for Example increase the contrast.

Wonderful portrait Grady... I love the DOF and all the detail you captured.

Steve