Red Shoulder Hawk

[ChrisCallahan]

7D, 300 2.8 + 2x TC, S 250, A f9, ISO 100, Manual Mode, Backbutton Focus, arms braced on roof of car. Slight crop from original (I think...).

Taken around 17:30, September 7th, in Flamingo, Florida, near the bay on those old trees which were slain by the hurricanes.

Thanks for looking!

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Chris,

Wow, this is a strong image the detail is really nice and HH 600MM shows some great field technique. Lets first talk composition, I might take a small layer off the bottom, lighten the eye a tad and add more canvas on the left hand side. There is a thread in the Education and Tutorial Forum that can assist with that process as well. Regarding exposure this looks good but with a 200 ISO you could double the shutter and possibly helped the 600MM even more.

The look is priceless and the image has a good feel, just a bit tight. Remember when shooting birds on a stick give them room to breath -nice picture please keep them coming.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Chris, good points made by Jeff. I would never shoot ISO 100 for any reason, as it throttles the sensor output, and in this case you could have gone to ISO 400 for a much better shutter speed. When hand-holding any kind of tele lens you must consider shutter speed before all else, IMO. That said, your use of the car for support really made a difference and the sharpness and detail are quite good. Exposure and color look good to me too. The combination of light and subject angle put you between the devil and the deep blue sea on this one. If the bird had looked slightly to the right you would not have the dark eye, but the head angle would be not quite as good as it is. Sorry for getting into such detail on this point, but if the hawk had turned its body slightly clockwise it would have made for a very nice light angle. I would also vote for opening up the frame.