A Scary encounter

[Richard Stern]

A dive-bombing Peregrine, close to a nest, although I didn't stay long enough to locate or disturb it - I didn't want myself or the bird harmed - odd that the bird is in imm. plumage in mid-June.

D7000, 300 f/4 AF-S + 1.7TC. Hand-held. 1/3200 at f/6.7 (kept the shutter speed up as the bird was certainly no slouch). ISO 1600. Moderate crop. Adustments, sharpening, nr in LR4.

Richard

[gail bisson]

Hi Richard,
You had a wonderful opportunity here.
The IQ of this image is really wonky.
There appears to be an incredible amount of noise in the falcon. Did you have to use a lot of fill light to expose the belly and wings? For this kind of shot, against bright sky and harsh light you need to have EC of a least + 1 1/3.How big is a "moderate" crop?
It could be the combo of the two things?...
I would go back during early am or early evening and try again,
Gail

[Matthew Studebaker]

I agree with Gail's crits. I like the stare and open mouth, but do wish for better image quality (less noise, more detail, better light).

[arash_hazeghi]

this image does not work unfortunately. IQ has fallen apart.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

You're not using shutter priority, are you? Problem is with shutter-priority is the aperture can open only so wide (I'm thinking F 6.7 in this case), and thus it is very easy to underexpose. I'd guess that this image was very underexposed, and lightened in post. In case you don't know, you should avoid underexposure at all costs; the sensor simply doesn't have enough light to capture sufficient detail.
Flight captures benefit greatly from manual exposure, and getting the exposure correct for the subject is the only concern. Aperture priority (with appropriate exposure compensation) sometimes works, but not nearly as often since the meter often reads the sky's light level and not that of the subject. regards~Bill

[Richard Stern]

You're not using shutter priority, are you? Problem is with shutter-priority is the aperture can open only so wide (I'm thinking F 6.7 in this case), and thus it is very easy to underexpose. I'd guess that this image was very underexposed, and lightened in post. In case you don't know, you should avoid underexposure at all costs; the sensor simply doesn't have enough light to capture sufficient detail.
Flight captures benefit greatly from manual exposure, and getting the exposure correct for the subject is the only concern. Aperture priority (with appropriate exposure compensation) sometimes works, but not nearly as often since the meter often reads the sky's light level and not that of the subject. regards~Bill

Thanks Bill.

Richard