Red-tailed Hawk

[Karl Egressy]

This is full frame.
Nothing added nothing taken.
The background was not touched.
The only thing I did was I applied a very moderate noise reduction to the whole and then selectively sharpened the bird.
I had to go close when it swooped down to catch a Field Mouse as it disappeared behind a mound.
My lens was to big for this kind of shooting.
I got only one unclipped picture that I will post an other time.
Thanks for looking.

Canon 1D MIV
Canon 500 f4.0 L IS II.
ISO 1250
f 5.6
1/1600 s (sky covered)
HH

[Shawn Zierman]

Beautiful red tail I dig how close you were able to get. You can see how thin the dof is. The feet look ever so sharper than the face, and another pass of sharpening on the face would not hurt. The wing clip is fine, just wish you had not clipped the toes/talons, and had a little more space below that. I would suggest a vertical presentation if you had managed that. As is, I wonder if a crop off the top and the right hand side (suggesting more negative space in front of the bird, even if not really so), would work...

[Karl Egressy]

Beautiful red tail I dig how close you were able to get. You can see how thin the dof is. The feet look ever so sharper than the face, and another pass of sharpening on the face would not hurt. The wing clip is fine, just wish you had not clipped the toes/talons, and had a little more space below that. I would suggest a vertical presentation if you had managed that. As is, I wonder if a crop off the top and the right hand side (suggesting more negative space in front of the bird, even if not really so), would work...

Thanks, Shawn. Nice to see you on the site again.
I did virtually everything you suggested. Here it is.

[Henry Domke]

The way that the wings and especially the feet are cut off looks accidental rather than intentional.

[Satish Ranadive]

Superb image image of kite with very nice head. Re post looks very nice. Agree with Shawn about clipped talons.

Regards,
Satish.