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Red Shouldered Hawk at Felsenthal NWR, Union County, Arkansas. It ducked into these bushes to avoid a mob of Redwing Blackbirds that were harrassing it. Image taken early morning 04-11-09.
Canon 40D, 500/4 + 1.4tc, f5.6, 1/320s, ISO 100, uncropped, as shot.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3365/...663a5342_b.jpg
Nice and close. Good light on the bird and nice not to have any shadows crossing it. Slightly better eye contact would have been nice - some localised eye work may be an option. Selecting and blurring the BG may help isolate the bird a little. Don't understand the uncropped comment as 40D produces 2:3 aspect ratio images which this isn't.
My bad. Forgot that I had cropped out some of the background off the top!
Sharp with a good EXP but this image has many serious problems: the background is extremely busy and the bird's face is in shadow with the sun from the right. A cloudy day would have helped soften the harsh BKGR contrast.
Thanks Artie. I am very new at bird photography so your critique is very helpful. BTW - I do have your Art of Bird Photography II CD. That may help explain why the exposure was as good as it was.
YAW Rev, When you first start and get close to a hawk, all that you can see is the hawk. With time, you will become more selective and look for cleaner settings. You will begin to notice the BKGR. Good luck!
Thanks for all the constructive critiques of my admittedly busy image. Here is another image from that same series, but with a gaussian blur applied to all that busy background. I don't know if this image is much of an improvement, but at least it was fun to see what is possible using the tools in Photoshop. I suppose it is all a part of the learning process.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3350/...e4aff05b_b.jpg
Good job on the BG - perch selection could be feathered a little more to soften the transition but impressive result.
