White Tailed Kite Brings Dinner to Mate - My best Yet!

[Loi Nguyen]

Things were very slow today with the white tailed kite breeding pair that I have been following, which hopefuly means the female is sitting on eggs. I saw her only briefly once in the moring and once in the afternoon when the male brought her food. This image was taken about 5PM while the sun ws still a bit harsh, but I was lucky to get almost full frame image. Cropped left and right ~ 10% and a wee bit top and bottom for composition.

1DX
500f4 II + 2X III
1/2000
F10
ISO-1250
Evaluative meterin off the blue sky + 2/3eV
Manual mode
Tripod.

PP on a lap top using CS6.

Appreciate yur comments.

Thank you!

Loi

[David Salem]

Hi Loi. Glad you are getting some more time with your pair and very cool getting them with prey. If this is almost full frame then something has gone wrong with either focusing or PP work. The bird looks blurred and there isnt much feather detail either.
May be motion blur as the shot was captured? See what others see, its late. They should be on eggs now. Good luck.

[PhilCook]

Nice wing spread for sure and gotta love the prey in the talons, like the intense stare and blue sky, a little soft/blurry, but still a great shot

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

I enjoyed watching some Kites this season myself, swallow tailed and the mating behavior and food transfer is awesome to watch. I like that you got the kite coming toward you and that you can see the prey. I also love the view of the talons. Agreed about IQ and the harsh light shadowed the birds left eye a bit which I would be tempted to lighten. I'm thinking the whites on top of the wings look a little grey perhaps from burning the highlites?

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Loi. Glad you are getting some more time with your pair and very cool getting them with prey. If this is almost full frame then something has gone wrong with either focusing or PP work. The bird looks blurred and there isnt much feather detail either.
May be motion blur as the shot was captured? See what others see, its late. They should be on eggs now. Good luck.

David, I went back to check the AF point on DPP. You are right, my central AF point is just off the head of the bird with one corner tocuhing, but I think that explains the softness. With the 2X, i was force to use the central AF point only.

Cheryl, I reduced exposure by 1/3 EV and reduced the highlights slider by 5. Here in the RP, I left exposure alone and redcued the highlights slider by only 2 clicks. There was no blown out pixel. I already brightened up the eyes, did a bit more here.

also I applied NR to the BG nly.

The RP is full frame, uncrop. This is the first time that I got a WTK this big in the frame, too bad the focus was a bit off.

Thank you all for your good comments.

Loi

[Jonathan Ashton]

I get the impression the foot and some of the whites were a little hot initially.
Purely a matter of choice but the ACR in CS6 would sort that out perfectly.