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A female Hen Harrier flying over reeds. This was originally horizontal aspect, but I changed it to vertical because I wanted to show the in-focus reeds/branches at the bottom of the image as well as having the bird large enough in the shot. Nothing much has been done apart from the crop - some minor levels adjustments, NR and sharpening (all done in LR3).
Canon EOS 7D, EF300mm f/2.8L IS USM, 1.4x TC, Gitzo GT3531 Mountaineer tripod, Gitzo GH3780QR ballhead
1/800 sec at f/4.0; ISO 200
Hello, fellow "Asian" John! I've shot hen harriers here on mainland Asia and can attest to the difficulty of saving the details in that white rump. (I'm assuming you shot yours in Japan.) You captured the harrier in an expressive position, but she's just a bit distant, isn't she?
Hi Craig:
Yes, taken near my home in Nagasaki prefecture. She's not that far away - the crop is from horizontal to vertical but almost full frame on the vertical side (if that makes sense?). I have another crop that frames just the bird which has a lot more detail. Unfortunately my lens doesn't give distance information, but you can see that it was on the same focal plane as the reeds in the foreground, even though it appears further distant...
Cheers,
John
Good comp (I like the placement in ULC) and overall feeling of habitat. Strong light with a strong shadow on the bird's underside, but properly exposed. I'm finding the pale white trunk streaks in the BG a bit distracting...I'm sure toning down some of the bolder ones would be good.
nice very similar to our harriers here, the harrier is somewhat small in the frame and does not show details... maybe would look better at larger size or in a print.
Nice environmental portrait; not every image needs to be bird-only. Usually I am immune to background distractions and often a background makes the image for me, but here I agree with Daniel that the pale areas would be better toned down a little.
