Nice intense look at this harrier close up, Corey. Good sharpness to the face and I am ok with the off lighting here. I do wish the wings were sharper. And area by her right eye looks hot.
I am wondering, were you near the nest? I was close to one this summer and was dive bombed pretty ferociously by the male. I've photographed harriers a lot, and never had one approach me directly till that.
Yes there was a nest in the area, I set up a blind on a hill next to the field and was able to get them hunting.
Some of my best shots where when the farmers dog came out in the end the birds always won.
Nice close up flight shot of this Harrier Cory. Great eye contact like you said and I like the creative crop. The face is nice and sharp too.
Due to the side lighting and the birds angle the face has hot and cold ares in it.
Hope you dont mind me playing with the shot a bit.
The left side of the face is quite hot so I selectively toned down the highlights. The right side was selected and the shadows brought up and brightened with levels.
I also selected the right eye and lightened it and changed the color to match the left one better too. I then added some color saturation to the right side of the face to make it less washed out and look more like the left side.
I have only done this with one other image on this site but I thought it was nice enough of an image to try some tweaking.
You should be able to do much better than this quick fix, especially with the RAW file and no halos.
Hope you like it.
Harrier eye contact!
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