Turkey Vulture, Central California Coast

[BillTyler]

This bird was flying along the edge of the coast road south of Big Sur. The road here is cut into a cliff, and the edge of the road has strong updrafts.

Canon 5Dmk3
Canon EF70-200 f/2.8L IS II USM at 190mm
1/800, f/8.0, ISO 400

[Ian Cassell]

Hi, Bill. Nice under-wing shot of these cool look critters. I'm using a crummy monitor here at work, so take my critique with a grain of salt. I think the vulture's head might be a bit too hot on top. It would have been nice to have a bit more light on the eye and side of the face.

[Bill Jobes]

I agree with Ian's evaluation, Bill.

This is a good look at a generally under-appreciated and seldom photographed bird.

You don't say whether you were using any positive exposure compensation, but even a +1 would have revealed more of the underbody of the bird.

You could then selectively tone down the over-exposed sunlit top of the head.

[BillTyler]

Thanks for the comments. I was not using exposure compensation. The bird was flying sometimes above my altitude, as here, where plus compensation would have helped, and sometimes below, where it would have been a problem. However, there is some headroom for adjustments. This version has the top of the head adjusted down, and the eye brightened a bit.

Bill

[gail bisson]

The repost looks much better.Image is nice and sharp and nice wing spread.
Were you shooting in manual? If you were, you should have increased your exposure compensation by decreasing shutter speed or increasing the aperture so that you were at +1 or even +1 1/3. This would have allowed proper exposure on the belly. The sky might be a bit blown out but it is easy to deal with that in PP.
I like your comp but could also see this as a pano with more off the bottom.
Gail

[Steve Kaluski]

Bill, espose for the bird, ignore the BKG when it's backlit like this. You can then retrieve the BKG later in PP, or just create a Smart Object and combine.