Montagu's Harrier - Female

[Girish Prahalad]

Made with a Canon 450D + Sigma 150-500.
F6.3 | ISO 200 | SS 1/500 @ 439 mm. Beanbag on car window.
Levels | Crop | USM | NR on BG.

Comments & critiques most welcome.

[Grace Scalzo]

Image qualtiy looks great. The grasses on each side of the frame (lower corners) could go. The image feels heavy on the left side to me. By cropping from the right to the edge of the rock, I think it looks good.

[Ashley Cohen]

I agree with the comments above, but it's a fantastic shot all the same :D

[Jonathan Ashton]

Very nice shot indeed - lovely light and colours, I would agree with the previous comments and maybe consider patching/cloning the poop.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Girish, love the light quality which in turn has brought out the detail and colours on the Harrier so well. Im fine with the comp, I would just 'wipe' away the poop. Killer BG.

[MohsenVahedipour]

excellent light & HA with nice details. the composition looks OK for me & agree with some cleaning actions.

[gail bisson]

A beautiful raptor in great light.
I agree with Grace's advice and would clean up the bird poo.
Good IQ and techs,
Gail

[Markus Jais]

Beautiful shot of this wonderful raptor.
I like the composition as presented. Great image quality.

Markus

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Excellent IQ and perfect pose. Love the clean bg and the overall earth tones. Very good dof. Would crop a bit from the right and the top. Would also clean up the whitewash.

[David Salem]

Great looking frame with great looking feather detail. Very nice.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Bird and perch look great, and I actually don't mind the extra "decorations" on it. Very nice BG. I wish there were more grasses present, but as is I tend to agree with Grace about them. Don't be scared to leave your ISO higher for bird photography...if this gal decides to take off or move in some other quick way ensure yourself enough SS to freeze it.

[Girish Prahalad]

Thanks for your feedback Daniel. Usually I have my ISO set to 400. Since the light was pretty good, decided to come a down a bit.
As suggested by you, I would also love to shoot at higher ISOs & capture some action shoots. However, with a Max ISO of 1600 in my camera,
I cannot afford to go beyond 400. Sometimes when the light is pretty dull & the subject is close, I do push up the ISO to 800. Beyond that I do not bother shooting.

Thanks all for your suggestions & feedback.