Another Red kite. Cloning attempt

[Iain Barker]

This is another red kite photo taken at Bellymack Hill Farm in Galloway, Scotland.
The weather at the time this was taken was cloudy and bright and I had to virtually burn out the sky to get the exposure correct for the bird.

This bird had green identification tags on both wings. I have never really attempted cloning out distractions before so this is my first real attempt.

Nikon D7000, Nikon 300mm f4 AF ED
1/640 f5.6 ISO 100

Comments and critique welcome.

[Bob Miller]

Iain....I think you did well with the cloning....I see no evidence of green tags! Nice sharpness and wing position. You might consider brightening up the face and wing undersides. It does not always work but I would try making a duplicate copy and changing the blend mode to screen....everything will get very light.....not to worry....now hold down alt and press the mask button...this will give you a black mask...now get a white brush and paint in what you would like to lighten. Finally use the opacity for that layer to fine tune. Hope this helps!

[Iain Barker]

Thanks Bob I will give that a go.
I am quite new to post processing and never know what I should and shouldn't do to improve my images. Any advice like yours is much appreciated.

[shane shacaluga]

I cannot notice any cloning so good work

Head looks nice and sharp a smaller aperture would have made the talons and tail sharp too

As mentioned above the underwings could be made lighter. Thanks for sharing that technique Bob, will try that too ;)

Iain, any reason you went for ISO 100 instead of slightly higher ISO with a faster shutter speed?

[Iain Barker]

Thanks Shane

At the time I had only just started using my D7000 and had the auto ISO on with a max shutter speed of 1/500 sec. I now normally have this set higher such as 1/1600 for birds in flight which would have still given me a relatively low ISO.
I also agree that I should maybe have used a smaller aperture to make more of the bird sharp.

[Iain Barker]

Here is a re-post of the image.

I have tried lightening the head and under wings using the technique Bob suggested above.
I'm not sure how well I have done with this technique.

Again any C & C are welcome and appreciated.

[Bob Miller]

Iain...I think your repost is an improvement esp with the upper wing...lets see what others think!

[Loi Nguyen]

I like the RP better. 1/640 is a pretty slow SS for BIF. I don't know about Nikon, but I would assume you can shoot noise free at ISO-400 easily. Good sharpness and details of the underwing. How much of a crop is it? details are good, but could be improved around the eye. Loi

[Iain Barker]

Thanks for you comments Loi.
The picture is nearly full frame. I just cropped some of the white space on the right and bottom to move the bird away from the center.
Do you have any tips on how the area around the eye could be improved in ps or lightroom?

[shane shacaluga]

I think if you darkened the pupil and the blck ring around the eye using curves, you would make it look sharper.