White Tailed Kite

[Loi Nguyen]

Checked on a pair of white tailed kite I got to know from last year. They successfully produced two chicks that fledged. Glad to find them, but there was no interaction between the pair today, perhaps still early in the season? Without a nest, they were difficult to approach, and this is the best I could get. The multi-color BG is the distant vegetation and the mountain, which I thought interesting so I left it as is. Only took out 3 small spectacular highlights.

1DX
500f4 II + 2X III (1000mm)
1/2000
f9
ISO-1600
Handheld

Cropped to about 33% of original FF.

Appreciate your comments.

thank you

Loi

[Don Railton]

Hi Loi

I like this a lot and agree the inclusion of the multi coloured BG is a plus.. The bird although small in the frame still stands out nicely. Well done..! My only suggestion is to reduce the noise in the BG a little. I think you could do this without loosing the colour appeal..

DON

[PRABIR BHATTACHARYYA]

Nice work.
However, the frame may have been made smaller to fill more by the subject provided the IQ permitted and a bit more contrast could be better.
A bit of noise is also showing in the BG.

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Don and Prabir, thank you for your comments. I cropped the image tighter and ran an additional NR to the BG. I think the IQ is holding up OK at least for this web posting size. The RP here shows the handsome bird better, but loses some of the multi-color of the BG. Let see what others say also. Happy New Year! Loi

[Arthur Morris]

I prefer the original post. The background is indeed interesting especially the swirly parts. Just a bit off of the right in the Pane 1 image might look nice.

[Jonathan Ashton]

I like the image but find the bird a little small in the frame, I attach a version for your consideration:

[Daniel Cadieux]

I like Jonathan's crop. I see a couple of oof FG branches and I suspect one of them is in front of the bird's body as the darks on there look washed out. Neat species, hope you get a good season out of them.

[Arthur Morris]

Obviously, I like the repost :)

[Grant Yang]

Nice shot. I would like to see maybe a little bit more contrast in the bird. If this is full frame, I'd also crop it closer to the bird slightly.

[Henry Domke]

I see a couple of oof FG branches and I suspect one of them is in front of the bird's body as the darks on there look washed out.

I couldn't understand the low contrast of the birds wings until I read Daniel's comment. He's very perceptive!
I never would have guessed that branches might be in front of the bird but I think he's right.
You might try selectively increasing the contrast to the parts of the bird that are washed out to minimize the damage.

[Loi Nguyen]

Wow, Jonathan, brilliant crop! and Daniel, you weren't there and yet you saw things more clearly than I! The kite perched on this eye level branch in an area with tall grass. I used the tall grass to help with the approach and thought I had a clear shot, but honestly I didn't have time for more than 2 shots when he took off. The take off shots I missed unfortunately.

Here is a repost. It's definitely better than both the OP and first RP.

Thanks a lot you guys!

Loi

[arash_hazeghi]

handsome bird in his classic California habitat. it is tough to correct an image that was blocked by OOF twigs. it seems you were pretty far from the kite... you need to wait for mating season where you can get closer or use a 3D camo. to get close.