White Tailed Kite at Sun Rise

[Loi Nguyen]

I was the first on the mountain whee these kites live last month. This guy was still asleep, so I could sneaked in a little bit to get this picture. I wish I could cut the distance in hlf, but he had none of it.

1DX
500f4 II + 2X III
1/2000
f8
ISO-800
Tripod

Again, I forgot to stop down, but the sharpness was not bad for a 2X. Next time I will remember!
I love the quality f the light and the beautiful red eye. Decided not to clone out anything here. Cropped to may be ~ 50% of original.
Applied NR to BG only, no the bird.

Appreciate your comments.

Loi

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Everyone, There seems to e a pretty obvious halo around this image despite the fact that I have cut he sharpening way down to 50 in CS6. Is it because this is a large crop? I don't see the halo in other images that I have posted recently.

[James Shadle]

Beautiful subject!!!!
I used the magic lasso to select the blue sky and then ran Gaussian Blur @ .03
While I had the image I cropped it to a composition that I feel is stronger than the original.

[Diane Miller]

Beautiful kite portrait! They are small and not easy to approach -- nice portrait in great light!

I like The Captain's crop and halo fix.

[Loi Nguyen]

James, thank you for the fix. I learned something here everyday and everyone is so kind. I have been reworking the image and when I chose 0.3 pixel instead of 0.5 when I did the sharpening, the halo went away. Love your crop. Hope to be n your boat sometime in the future.!

[Don Lacy]

The first thing I thought when I open this was it needed to be cropped differently and James version really improves the image. Loi there are several ways to handle sharpening halos one is to lower the radios as you found out a few others are to sharpen on a separate layer and change the blending mode to luminosity and you can also select the subject and feather the selection slightly before you sharpen.

[David Salem]

Getting better all the time. Sharp and exposed well Loi. Like the repost allot. By the time they have young you are going to have it dialed in. Good job

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the sharpness, lighting and composition in the repost. Look forward to seeing more. Nice image Loi.

[Daniel Cadieux]

At the distance you were from the subject you did not need to stop down anyhow (unless you mean for added sharpness with the 2x TC). Beautiful subject indeed and I like the white/grey/black layers on the plumage. The recrop is indeed an improvement, and I like the bit of vegetation at the bottom.

[Loi Nguyen]

At the distance you were from the subject you did not need to stop down anyhow (unless you mean for added sharpness with the 2x TC). Beautiful subject indeed and I like the white/grey/black layers on the plumage. The recrop is indeed an improvement, and I like the bit of vegetation at the bottom.

Thank you Daniel. Yes, I meant to stop down for added sharpness, not DOF. I find stopping down to F10 or F11 with the 2X gives noticeably improvement in sharpness. Loi

[Marina Scarr]

Lovely image and recrop works well. I am seeing a halo around the tail area.