Merlin over Sunflowers
From a local reserve on Friday evening. Two Kestrels and two Merlins were chasing each other around in nice evening light, but went so fast that I had trouble getting them in the lens. Got this guy after he took off from his perch on a bluebird house, a corner of which I evicted. I kept this loose in part because it is already a largish crop, and in part because I liked the sunflowers on the bottom.
D7000, 700mm, ISO 1600, 1/2500s @ f/8 manual, Gitzo and Mongoose.
Nice habitat and flight pose; the flowers add a lot to the image! IQ suffers a bit from the crop IMO.
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Bill:
Very pretty, well composed, flowers pick up the yellow feet. Agree with Doug about the IQ.
Cheers
Randy
Nicely composed and love the layered background. The topside flight pose is fantastic.
Well done Bill. Good call on leaving the sunflowers in for some base to the image. Love the topside view.
Bill Sir,
Wonderful flight pose in evening lights with very nice HA and wing position.Beautiful composition with yellow flowers at the bottom.
Regards,
Satish.
What a gorgeous color field to capture a SWEET flight pose on. Without knowing what you had to work with originally, this feels like one of those images where the wider you can go, the better. Regardless, just a little bit more sharpening on the bird and I think this excellent image would rock even harder. Subject placement in the frame from a composition standpoint is spot on.
Very appealing Bill! Love the topside view, but agree more sharpening to the wings at least would work well for web posting.
Very nicely caught, love the composition. If it is a large crop I would suggest cropping slightly less and applying just a tad more sharpening.
Thanks everyone. Your comments always appreciated. Re. the crop: this is 52% of original width; more than I would prefer to crop, but not massive. I'm guessing that any issue with the IQ could also be attributable to the 1600 ISO, which I felt was necessary to stop this speeding bullet. Here's a repost with some additional sharpening.
The repost looks really good.
I agree Shawn on this one. I would love to see more of the flowers and a bit looser crop.
Congrats on nailing this speedster.
Gail
Thanks Gail. If I had had more sunflowers, I might have cropped differently. Unfortunately, that's all I had in the image. I cropped out some dark distant woods in the upper BG, so I didn't think a looser crop would have added much.Originally Posted by gail bisson
Fantastic flight shot, Bill. I like everything about it.
Great capture Bill of one of my favorite raptors. The repost is a big improvement and I like the whole scene with the sunflowers. Well done.
Fantastic image, Bill. I like the comp and the HA is great with nice eye contact. I prefer the repost. I agree onthe sunflowers adding to the image.
TFS
Hennie
The wing extension, HA and beautiful light make this a winner in my book, Bill !
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