Portrait of the northern harrier, my last frame in 2014

[arash_hazeghi]

This was my last frame of 2014. I got this frame in Boundary Bay near Vancouver, I have few harrier frames on a nice perch because they are very skittish but this lady let me get close enough and chose a nice perch too. I hope you like this frame.



Shot with 1D-X and 300 f/2.8 II + 2X III. ISO 4000, f/5.6 at 1/1250sec hand held. processed with DPP 4



Happy new year everyone, have enjoyed looking at your images in 2014 and look froward to more in 2015!

[Bill Dix]

A real beauty, Arash. The bird and the perch both have a lot of character, and the light is gorgeous. And of course your superb IQ as always. Happy New Year to you!

[Glenn Conlan]

Very nice Arash, nice warm moody look and rare to get one sitting still. Happy New Year

[Randy Stout]

Arash:

Rich saturated colors, interesting perch, good pose, soft bg.

Happy New Year to you as well.

Cheers

Randy

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Arash, love the warm light on the harrier against a darker BG. It was great that she allowed you to get close. Happy New Year! Loi

[Raybel Robles]

This is beautiful Arash. The warm light adds a lot and love the composition.


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[Fred Woodman]

Ridiculously nice, !

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Awesome image Arash. Great light, tone and depth in the image. I like the HA, the gorgeous looking bird and comp. have a wonderful year ahead.

[keith mitchell]

"I hope you like this frame." like it ! I think it's superb in every way.

A very happy new year to you Arash.

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent image. Beautiful pose, great lights and color pallet. Superb composition.
Wish You Happy New Year and Happy Birding....2015.

Regards,
Satish.

[gail bisson]

Happy New Year Arash!
Love the light and the weird gnarly perch.
I really like the fact that I can see the tail so well.
I am wondering why you were at such a high ISO? Were you trying to keep SS up in case she took off?
I would have traded SS for ISO for this portrait ( hindsight is always 20/20 isn't it?!) Having said that, the lack of noise is amazing for an ISO of 4000.
Did you use the NR in DPP4 only or did you use another noise reducing plug-in as well for this shot?
Gail

[dankearl]

Beautiful stuff, Arash, a pleasure to view in that excellent light......

[Robert Kimbrell]

Super Image Arash, Beautiful light, super processing, And he gave you such a nice perch.

[Sonny Rostami]

Amazing shot. Love the lighting.


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[adrian dancy]

Of course this a corker of a bird. The perch is one **** of a perch, I cannot imagine a better one. However I cannot make out the smoothness and colour changes in it...was there a foliage between the perch and lens? No big deal , I'm just intrigued. In regard to the bird and image generally it looks like you had a touch of light to give the bird colour and form that does not result in a flat image. There is a bit of noise in the bird but given the ISO one cannot really complain. My personal preference is for BGs that have compatible noise to the subject matter. Putting aside the above I really do like the image and for me this one where the image out trumps the technicals...largely because of the fantastic perch with a fine bird on top of it.

[arash_hazeghi]

Of course this a corker of a bird. The perch is one **** of a perch, I cannot imagine a better one. However I cannot make out the smoothness and colour changes in it...was there a foliage between the perch and lens? No big deal , I'm just intrigued. In regard to the bird and image generally it looks like you had a touch of light to give the bird colour and form that does not result in a flat image. There is a bit of noise in the bird but given the ISO one cannot really complain. My personal preference is for BGs that have compatible noise to the subject matter. Putting aside the above I really do like the image and for me this one where the image out trumps the technicals...largely because of the fantastic perch with a fine bird on top of it.

Thanks

There was no foliage but perch was wet from the rain, parts of it were shaded too. I don't really see noise on the bird.

[arash_hazeghi]

Happy New Year Arash!
Love the light and the weird gnarly perch.
I really like the fact that I can see the tail so well.
I am wondering why you were at such a high ISO? Were you trying to keep SS up in case she took off?
I would have traded SS for ISO for this portrait ( hindsight is always 20/20 isn't it?!) Having said that, the lack of noise is amazing for an ISO of 4000.
Did you use the NR in DPP4 only or did you use another noise reducing plug-in as well for this shot?
Gail

Thanks Gail, I am always ready for flight so I prefer to keep the shutter speed high. I can always deal with noise in post processing but if the RAW is not tack sharp it will have to go to the recycle bin.

As for NR, I used exactly the same procedure described in DPP 4 guide for conversions then I opened the image in PS and did some minor curve adjustment, applied very mild NI to the BG only, then cropped and sharpened the harrier after resizing.

hope this helps

Happy new year to you as well

Arash

[shane shacaluga]

Wonderful portrait. Really like the grey tones and the perch is just awesome

IQ is great as expected from you ;)

Thanks for sharing and Happy New Year!

[Daniel Cadieux]

Happy New Year Arash...all the best for 2015.

[David Salem]

Happy New year Arash. I was in the middle of a computer upgrade and couldn't see this on the big screen. Very nice to get one sitting, as you know, and to have that nice of a perch and BG to go along with it is killer. Glad you got some good frames up north. See ya soon.