Secretary Bird Portrait

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

5D3+500 II. Wish the blade of grass wasn't crossing the body, but this image is un altered except for minor PP work. Hope you like it.

Camera	Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Exposure	(1/400)
Aperture	f/5.6
Focal Length	500 mm
ISO Speed	160
Exposure Bias	0 EV

[Marina Scarr]

What an interesting bird and what a flamboyant crown. I would have liked to see either more room all around or a tigher crop.

[Karl Egressy]

Great looking bird. If you go for the portrait crop, tighter crop would work better, as marina already mentioned it.

[Daniel Cadieux]

You are one brave man photographing birds at ISO 160...I'd be too scared to miss some action because of slow shutter speeds that could have been higher. Anyhow, it turned out very nice IQ-wise here - exceptional details. Just a better crop needed IMO, perhaps tighter would work but you gotta be careful where to cut the legs and tail.

[Satish Ranadive]

Beautiful image. I like the feathers on crown, beautiful IQ. Rest is mentioned above.Regards,Satish.

[arash_hazeghi]

love the pose, too bad parts of the bird were clipped. head is sharp but the blacks show no detail, as if you applied lots of noise reduction to those areas. at this ISO you should not apply any NR whatsoever.

ISO 160 is a big mistake for bird photography IMO, you scarifies sharpness and gain nothing

TFS

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Sanjeev, great close up of this magnificent bird, and love the sharp detail around the head and neck. A great display of the crest too. Its such a pity you had too much glass, but I would really try and clone away that blade of grass, it doesnt look like too hard a job to do.

[Martin Dunn]

Sanjeev, whilst the head looks reasonably sharp and the crest shows off well for me this shot falls down because of the crop.
Losing the feet and the tip of the tail really detracts from the image.