Whistling Kite Portrait

[John Cooper]

This Whistling Kite was attracted by offering chicken carcasses. Like most raptors this kite is a very wary bird and took some weeks before it obliged to have its photo taken .
It was also necessary to have someone to show me into the hide!

Canon EOS 7D, 100-400mm lens @ 400mm, 1/2000 sec F8, ISO 800, early morning natural light slightly from the left, Tripod, Hide.

[Randy Stout]

John:

I like the head angle, neat hair do, exposure. Good perch.

On my monitor, looks like the bird could use a little more sharpening.

In general I like the concept of having a "prey item" in the image, but not sure this large, chunk of a carcass works as well as a natural item.

Might be interesting to see images without the chicken.

Cheers

Randy

[Jonathan Ashton]

Well focused and an interesting complimentary background. I think I would lower the highlights a little what do you think??

[Raybel Robles]

On my monitor here at work it seems the photo have a green cast. I would also suggest running a bit or noise reduction to the background and burning some very bright areas a bit. Specifically around the head and neck area and the feet. You may try a detail extractor as well to recover a bit form the highlights.

[Binu John]

Excellent job with the setup! Love the light pose, perch and exposure. Agree about the color cast, which can be fixed easily. Well done!