Poor quality but great opportunity so took it!

[Warren Spreng]

This Cooper's Hawk often visits our back yard and this shot was just serendipitous as another hawk was in the area and this one decided to voice his opinion! I grabbed the camera and shot through a window and caught this at the peak of his vocalization. The ISO was set a bit high and focus was soft so I did what I could with it in LR with some sharpening of the bird and blurring of the background. Not sure I can improve on it much more.
Canon Rebel EOS T3i/Tamron SP 150-600 ISO1600/f11/1/125 hand held shot.

[Sonny Rostami]

Hey sometimes its about catching the moment and not IQ. Well Done

[Diane Miller]

Great quality for the specs! The moment is perfect.

I might experiment with trading some DOF for more shutter speed.

If this guy is a regular there, I'd be camping out in a comfortable chair (or a blind) waiting for him.

[Warren Spreng]

Thanks for the comments. Diane, I definitely plan to set up a blind at sometime near my feeders as there are a number of visitors that I would like to catch including this fellow. I'll keep in mind the faster SS.

[WillieHall]

we get what we can, nice moment captured. I also need a good blind, any ideas on light and portable?

[Warren Spreng]

we get what we can, nice moment captured. I also need a good blind, any ideas on light and portable?

Thanks for the comment! I have heard a lot of comments about this as far as portable. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...G&Q=&A=details I'm not sure this is what I want, or something more substantial that I can leave set up near my patio. I have seen other set ups from ones that spring open to ones that set up similar to a tent.

[Diane Miller]

You can buy camo cloth from hunter's supply stores, in fairly large sizes, for a lot cheaper. If you just want to drape it over yourself, grab a couple of clothespins and it would be about the same as the B&H product. And you can get up and creep along with it.

But wary birds would probably be more tolerant of a blind you can set up and leave, and walk into it when you want. I've read the trick, for very wary species, of two or three people gong into a blind (as surreptitiously as possible) and a while later, all but one leaving. This is on the premise that birds can't count, but I'm not sure I would count on that....

[Moe Ali]

I can definitely relate to your experience Warren. I had a Hawk in my backyard, but my shot is no where near your image. You've got an awesome expression with a nice clean background. I echo the comment on increasing shutter speed. Your tamron should be sweet at f8, which will give you that extra room for shutter speed increase, or even a slightly lower ISO. Hopefully you don't mind, but I downloaded and tweaked your image to see if more could be done, and I think you can definitely improve the processing and make this a better image….. at least until this guy decides to come back and be a more cooperative Cooper .

[Warren Spreng]

I can definitely relate to your experience Warren. I had a Hawk in my backyard, but my shot is no where near your image. You've got an awesome expression with a nice clean background. I echo the comment on increasing shutter speed. Your tamron should be sweet at f8, which will give you that extra room for shutter speed increase, or even a slightly lower ISO. Hopefully you don't mind, but I downloaded and tweaked your image to see if more could be done, and I think you can definitely improve the processing and make this a better image….. at least until this guy decides to come back and be a more cooperative Cooper .

Thanks Moe, that is great advice! I don't mind at all, would love to see what you did with the image since I am a total newbie at this type of photography. I just got in some flashes and posts to be able to start utilizing that option as well so I have a looooonnnnnnggggg learning curve ahead of me!

[Diane Miller]

Flashes are very useful -- what did you get? With some bodies you can fire two or more with an IR signal from the camera, or with several kinds of radio controllers. If you set them to ETTL (where they calculate the exposure with a preflash) that will sometimes spook a subject and when the main flash fires it's in the middle of a jump. I usually set mine on M and experiment to get the right power.

[Moe Ali]

I'm still an amateur when it comes to photography and editing. There's always so much to learn. So editing images is a nice challenge to practice new techniques. I'm sure this could be edited a million different ways to each persons personal taste.

Here's my take on the image using your JPG, with my 20/20 vision and a monitor that I eye-ball calibrated .

[Warren Spreng]

Flashes are very useful -- what did you get? With some bodies you can fire two or more with an IR signal from the camera, or with several kinds of radio controllers. If you set them to ETTL (where they calculate the exposure with a preflash) that will sometimes spook a subject and when the main flash fires it's in the middle of a jump. I usually set mine on M and experiment to get the right power.

I got an Altura set with two flashes and remote receivers and stands to put them on. Played with them last night and finally figured out how to sync everything up, now I'll do some practice setups near where I plan to try some imaging to see if I can figure out all of the best settings given the location. I think I'll wait until the snow is off my patio though and it is warmer than a -5F wind chill!!

[Warren Spreng]

I'm still an amateur when it comes to photography and editing. There's always so much to learn. So editing images is a nice challenge to practice new techniques. I'm sure this could be edited a million different ways to each persons personal taste.

Here's my take on the image using your JPG, with my 20/20 vision and a monitor that I eye-ball calibrated .

Nice tweak on that image, definitely improved the definition. Thanks for sharing!