Striated Caracara study

[Alan Lillich]

The striated caracaras on Sea Lion Island in the Falklands seem to be quite used to people and used to scavenging lunch droppings - maybe even stealing lunches. One or two hung around watching us at each of the rockhopper penguin colonies. I was trying for a tight head portrait when this one bent over to preen so I grabbed this shot of the back of its neck. I cropped about 10% off the top and whatever off the sides to make a square.

1D-IV, 300 f/2.8 plus 2x TC, tripod mounted, ISO 800, 1/1000 at f/8 set manually. A fair amount of sharpening in LR and Nik Tonal Contrast were used.

[Henry Domke]

I enjoy the texture of this.
I think it would be helped by making the blacks balker. It would make the texture more pronounced.
What do you think?

[PhilCook]

Makes an interesting abstract, and the repost by Henry has made it work better

[Arthur Morris]

Good thinking and capture. Henry's repost rocks. Best to try for at least f/11 for these plumage detail shots.

[arash_hazeghi]

very cool! I like the feather details. Nice work and repost gave it more punch

[Alan Lillich]

Thanks all. I really like what Henry did for the dark brown feathers on the left. But I like the softer middle ones better in the original, Henry's feel a bit garish and less real. Could be a difference of intent. I considered doing some heavier processing and posting in OOB, but then decided the reality was more satisfying to me.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I like these types of images, and I must remind myself to make more like this....lots of good opportunities with mallards and geese. I like the details you got here and I also like your square crop and three-tiered feather patterns. The repost does add some punch.