Northern Harrier Landing

Another image from SoCal and Dave's truck.
There was a dead coot in the field and several raptors were milling about the carcass. This lovely lady waited on the sidelines and this is her as she landed in the field. The image is 98% FF with a sliver off the RHS for composition.
The only "bummer" about this shot is that I do not have that gorgeous California sunset light on her. About 5 minutes before I took this image, a big old cloud covered the sun and we were "dead in the water" with regards to light the rest of the hour.
But I am still pretty pleased with this.
ISO 1600 F 5.6 SS 1/1600
Canon 1DX 600mm
Had to do a fair bit of PP with color balance and levels and contrast etc to get the image as I saw it in the viewfinder.
Comments and critiques always appreciated and learned from with thanks,
Gail

Nicely caught and well focused. Composition is also pleasing. The image seems to lacking a little punch in terms of colours, the tones look a little flat, as you indicate the light was not on your favour but I wonder if a few curve adjustment would help. I also would have expected to see more plumage detail in a full frame image such as this (??) Perhaps a little more sharpening and or a little clarity is called for. I would have thought 1/1600 sec would have caught good detail - perhaps a faster shutter speed would have been beneficial? I hope this doesn't sound too negative because I do like the image.:S3:

That is a really sweet landing pose with beautiful spread wings. Love those dangling talons. Man I wish there was a place that I knew of around New York that I could photograph these guys from the car.

Overall this is a beautiful photo that I would love to have. I think it needs a little fine tuning to really make it come to life. I did the following to your shot.
Easiest thing was that I cloned out the dark spot on the bottom left of the frame (see you have me looking all over for specular highlights and things like that now :2eyes2:).
When photographing in cloudy conditions, Canon cameras (can't speak for other camera makers) will also present you with a photo that is too blue. The sensors seem to over compensate for the blue and you have to bring out the warmer tones in post.
I reduced the blues in the bird and the background separately but could have done together. -50 in hue/saturation only on the blue channel
I went into levels and lowered the mid tones -9 on the whole photo
In Selective Color I upped the black in the neutrals +2 and the same for the blacks in the black +2
I burned the shoulder area just a touch as it was showing highlights on my screen
In viveza I added +10 warmth to the background only (plenty of ways to do that but that was the quickest) and upped the brightness +3
Then I upped the brightness of the bird only +6 and add +3 contrast.

Usual comments re better to do on the full res image and I was not thorough with my selection, etc. Just wanted to give you an idea of where the photo could go. Thoughts?

Thanks so much Isaac. It looks so much better. I am always hesitant to add too much "stuff " to an image in case it starts to look phony but this looks excellent. I will redo and post,
Gail

Fabulous landing pose with full wing spread and dangling feet. On first look I had the same thought: add several points of black. Isaac took it a step (or 7) further, and his repost really brings it out.

Very well done Gail. Great timing to catch the bird in this flight pose. I like everything about it, especially those wings and tail. Nice one.

Will

Gail I don't think that anyone should feel like they are adding too much stuff on these kinds of shots. It is pretty clear that photos in low light/low contrast situations do not look on the screen the way they did in real life. When I first got my 1dx I really struggled with how to process photos from these kind of lighting conditions and even started a thread about it on the processing forum. I think I have gotten a pretty good handle on it now that I understand that you pretty much always need to reduce the blues, add some contrast, some warmth and some depth to the mid tones. And you need to nail the exposure as best as you can in the camera. Hopefully some of our UK members who (unfortunately for them) shoot more often in this light can chime in more on processing techniques in cloudy conditions.

With regards to SS, you could probably still get very good quality files at ISO 3200 Gail? So that would give you higher SS too. :)
Love the pose, it is stunning. What Isaac has done is lifted it with the PP to where the image should be. Not sure I would have bothered with the partial removal of the dark spot in the LLC, it's not drawing my eyes away at all since the image is powerful in itself especially with such a large subject, the pose and the details.

Wonderful work Gail! I totally love this!

Oh boy this is fantastic. I love the thickness of the wings. After Isacc's repost there is not much I would change! BTW, I often reduce the saturation on the blue channel only to reduce blue casts - a good and easy tip if there nothing else in the image that is supposed to be blue.

Wonderful landing Gail, and the repost makes tis image come to life. I'll be working on the other harrier images that are in need of similar processing due to such flat light... If only that cloud.... What a gorgeous creature, well done my friend.

Nice landing with the fanned tail. The original is too dull for a harrier Issac's repost is much better it can even can go a bit further to show the Northern harrier's rusty feathers. looks like you had fun.

TFS

Thanks Isaac for the repost and here is my version. I just dodged the dark spot that you mentionned.

Beautiful landing Frame Gail and I love all the flared feathers displayed beautifully.
What a fun afternoon that was but I sure wish we had the sun out.
The repost looks much better but remember what we talked about, don't be afraid to really bump up the colors on these higher ISO shots. Well done and looking forward to the next frame.

Looking much better Gail. Minor changes make a big impact on this one. Looks great now.

Very nice Gail, what a difference with those pp tweaks... that darn cloud....

Late to the party but this is sweet. Great pose, details, nice BG, and great look at the face. The RP took it up another level and I also find / struggle with how much saturation to add back in for these high ISO shots. I would love to have a harrier frame half this good. TFS