San Ignacio Moon Rise...

[dankearl]

This is about the toughest shot I have ever taken. I visualized what I wanted to do the minute I
got to the whale camp and saw the nest. The Sunrise shot I posted was easy, just had to get a nice flight pose.
This one required going down to iso6400 because by the time the full moon rose to the nest it was pretty bright,
thus the high iso, wide open aperture and a cooperative Osprey to sit still in windy conditions so I got
away with the slow SS.
Processing was tough and if any suggestions, I would love to hear it...

f2.8, 200mm (70-200 f2.8), 1/160, iso6400, Nikon D600, Handheld.

610_9128bp.jpg

[Randy Stout]

Dan:

A striking image, well conceived.

The tough conditions resulted in a lot of posterization in the background, at least in the jpeg as posted.

I might move the nest a bit to the right in the frame, instead of dead center.

If you want to share a large jpeg of this or even a raw, it might be fun to tinker with.

Cheers

Randy

[keith mitchell]

Dan this sounds very difficult and way above my head, but I am really enjoying looking at your finished results.

Keith.

[Satish Ranadive]

Great show.Excellent image.

Regards,
Satish.

[dankearl]

Thanks for the comments, Randy, Keith and Satish.
Randy, this is full frame, I really can't move the nest because I need every pixel because of the high iso.
I could have and should have composed in camera better.
I am a bit disappointed in the responses, this is one situation where I really wanted some feedback as to
how others may have taken this shot...

[Daniel Cadieux]

I can understand that this was difficult...the moon moves fast when trying to compose an image such as this. You did what you could in-camera. As far as processing I would suggest checking the masking carefully...there is a band of noise along the left of the post. I'd probably be a bit more aggressive on the NR to the nest and subject too. Kudos for spotting the opportunity!

[David Salem]

Very cool image Dan. Looks like an exposure nightmare but you handled it very well. Shooting into the moon, your light source, looks like it would be tough to expose properly, if there is a properly. Wondering what it would have looked like if the birds head were centered in the moon?
The Posterization looks kinda cool but it does add a digital quality to it. A little CW rotation would look better IMO and I can see some of the high ISO noise below the nest and around the branches left behind from NR. Lots of work to cut around all those branches for NR.
Otherwise I think it's a very well coceved and executed image that I personally like. Well done

[Arthur Morris]

David hit precisely on my thoughts: you needed to be six inches higher and two inches to your right to better position the bird in the center of the moon. Otherwise you did quite well from where I sit. What Dan meant was the you should have composed in the field with nest placed well more to the right. a