Tawny Eagle in the warm morning light of the Namib, eating the remnants of a warthog, that was killed the day prior by a pack of African wild dog.
The color was pretty tough as everything was very dry, (drought) with red sand, red morning sun and a warm bird, but the color rendition is as I remember it.
I am working through Aresh's sharpening techniques and slowly, albeit slowly my image sharpness seems to be improving.
Blurb: 1D IV
Canon 500 f/4
iso 400
av: f/5.6
tv 1/1250
-1/3 ev
Beanbag in a game drive vehicle
Last edited by Gavin Slabbert; 12-26-2013 at 05:35 PM.
Hi Gavin,
Still happy with my 1DX!!
I am not loving this image.
I really miss the feet and I find the OOF foreground stuff too messy and bulky.
I think you handled the reds in the image very well.
I like the IQ of the head and the bit of food on the beak.
I would clone out the little bush to the left of the bird (if not against your ethics)
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family,
Gail
Thanks Gail, glad that you are still enjoying the 1Dx, no sooner did I sell it to you and then had to purchase one for myslef, not the smartest move but those are the breaks ... lol ...
I too miss the feet, however this is a photo of a bird feeding in a natural habitat, I sort of liken it to a wading birding in search of food, you wont get the feet if you look for that sort of behavior.
I can remove the bush, and will look into doing so,
The oof carcass was left there purposefully as the food source, I cropped some of the carcass away to tidy it up a bit.
To me this is an excellent image of a behavior in a wild situation, I have seen too many bird and other wildlife images all over the web where it has been all about the pose, and the background has been drastically altered, the bird has been extracted and the backgrounds over worked and blurred beyond recognition, and that simply does not work for me.
Thanks for your critique, and I value your input.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to you as well, and stay warm ...
Gavin, After reading your reply to Gail's critique, I can see what you were going for. I think the main problem lies with the fact that YOU know what all that stuff in the foreground is, the viewer doesn't. I can't tell what it is, just looks like dirt, wood, maybe a carcass, who knows. I would have backed up and included more of the scene. Maybe if the eagle was tugging some meat off the carcass it would help. If I were you, I'd look at the series and see if there are any images that tell your story better.
Grace, thanks for your observations, and please Gail's input is really helpful, as is yours. The observation of my knowing what the foreground is, yet it may not be obvious to others is a really cool observation, basically I cant see the forest for the trees, so to speak. I cropped away some of the carcass as i thought that it was too much, and in fact all I successfully did was confuse the viewer.
I will say though and as Gail observed, the missing feet really bothers me, for the feet and talons of an eagle are striking. We did attempt to move the vehicle to a better angle (this bird landed while we were viewing a crash of white Rhino) so we happened to be on the lighted side of the carcass, but sadly the feet were covered. I do have it taking off, I do have it strutting its stuff but nothing like the head angle, the stare and with the food on it.
These types of reviews, critiques is why I post here, and thank you both for your time and critique.
Tawny Eagle at breakfast
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