Kestrel takeoff

[Bob Serling]

American Kestrel male taking off

Canon 1D Mark IV
Canon EF300mm f/2.8 with EF 2X teleconverter
f/5.6 1/4000 800ISO

Some cropping and minor exposure adjustment in Lightroom

I'd love any comments and critiques

Thanks!

Bob Serling

[Diane Miller]

This is a great image! It's sharp and clean, and a wonderful post. I hope others will speak up here, but you would get better critique in Avian, and I don't think there is any problem with posting it there also -- but I'm too new here to be sure.

[Bob Serling]

Thanks for your kind words - I really appreciate it. Since I've only posted once before, I don't want to violate policy. As a moderator, would you happen to know if the Avian moderator would just delete one of the posts if duplicates aren't appropriate?

Thanks,

Bob Serling

[Thinus Schoeman]

Bob, I think it is a super image. It is sharp, well exposed with lots of detail. I also like the composition. Well done!

[keith mitchell]

Bob it looks well exposed and sharp a very nice image.

Keith.

[LinzRiverBalmer]

This is a great image!

The light might be a bit harsh, but we all say that to bright blue backgrounds.

Even though the head angle is not perfectly ideal, you still got great highlight in the eye.

I think the wing position and sharpness is very good overall, maybe a little soft on the closer wing.

I'm new here to and especially new to in flight, so not great at advice.

I think you can post in Avian whenever you want, I don't think there is a policy about when you can post there, just when you are comfortable.

You might PM one of the moderators on Avian and ask about a double post, not sure there.

[Diane Miller]

I'll ask the other mods to check in here on the issue -- I'm brand-new as a mod.

[Diane Miller]

I got the reply that it isn't encouraged to post the same image in two forums, but for images this good, I'd encourage you to post in Avian -- much as I hate to "lose business" here. You'll get a lot more people looking at it and get more critique.

Look forward to seeing more from you, wherever you choose!

[Bob Serling]

Thanks, Diane. I appreciate all your help. I did post it this morning to Avian and mentioned I had posted it here and hoped that didn't cause a problem. Fortunately, I was welcomed by the moderators and received excellent feedback from a number of people on things I could do in post to improve the image even more, primarily noise reduction and selective sharpening of the head.

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Bob, This is an excellent image of a take off. These guys are very fast, so you got it right. For critique, I think the AF focus wasn't somewhere on the wing, not on the head, so the head is a little bit soft and lacks some details. You could try to sharpen the head once more round. The light was a little bit hash here as evidence by the shadow. You could try to lift the shadow a touch. BTW, it is a female kestrel. The male has blue wings. Loi

[Bob Serling]

Thanks for the excellent advice Loi. You're right about the AF point as I was a bit slow in tracking "her". And you're point there is correct too, it's indeed a female. Can you elaborate more on how to lift the shadow? I'm a complete rookie when it comes to post processing, so any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Bob, if you use LR, use a brush and experiment with the amount of shadow. The shadow here is not bad at all, so I would "lift" it up just by a small amount. It looks pretty good and there is not much noise there, that was why I suggested. Loi

[Bob Serling]

Thanks, Loi. I'll give that a try.

[Diane Miller]

Often it isn't necessary to do local (brush) adjustments. You should start with balancing the Shadows and Highlights sliders, assuming you have a recent version of LR that has the new "Process 2012" sliders. (They were new with LR 4 and are a huge improvement.) And then use Clarity to restore a touch of mid-tone contrast. The other sliders of course shouldn't be neglected, but those are often the ones to start with, along with white balance. If LR adjustments aren't enough then resort to local adjustments with the brush, or many people prefer to do most local adjustments in PS where there is more control. Nik's Detail Extractor is often a big help, as is Nik's Viveza, which has an amazing ability to select the tonal areas you click on.

[ArthurSteinberger]

I aspire to take pictures like that. Great detail and full capture of the motion.

[Jim Keener]

I was thinking when I first saw the photo, just as Arthur stated, that's why I landed here: to learn to create images like yours. I'm encouraged. I have a strong sense of the life in the bird.