Juvie Falcon

[Adhika Lie]

This is a portrait of our local juvenile peregrine falcon. This thing is fast in the air and it's a good workout on my BIF techniques. It also makes me realize how limiting the AF can be when f/6.3 is all I have. Anyway, let's not cry over tools that I do not possess, here is one shot while it is perching. I am a little wary shooting at ISO 2000, but I need the shutter speed; so what the heck, it's better than not having any shot of this little cutie.

Tech: 460mm, f/6.3, ISO-2000; 1/1000 sec; I was on manual mode and Matrix metering +0.3 EV dialed in camera. I think when I shot this it was probably about -0.3 on the camera light meter which probably ends up bringing this to a nett amount of 0EV. I wish I had ETTR this a bit more. I ended up still bringing the exposure slider -0.4 and compensate everything else on the other sliders. Highlight only probably half way down to burn the OOF background a bit and then bring up the shadows to almost maximum. White and black sliders to compensate for contrast a bit. This was shot at sunset so it was naturally very warm; but the side of the bird that faced the cliff was very blue with greenish tint on it so I had to brush in a little bit temperature and tint compensation for the left half of the body and a little bit on the beak and face facing us. The crop was done from top and bottom to better fit the bird. Other than that pretty much as is.

Noise reduction was done using Nik Dfine while masking out the bird (using the control point on Dfine) and finally sharpened using Nik for presentation (pretty much just on the bird).

[Diane Miller]

Wow! Excellent look back, and great color correction! My only suggestion might be to crop a little more from the top and bottom. Looks like he's evaluating you as a possible snack.

Hope to see many more of this guy!!

[Warren Spreng]

That is great! Love the head position, and the BG adds some interesting texture.

[Doug West]

One of your best!

With Diane's cropping recommendation and taking care of that somewhat black blob in the
left hand corner...home run.

Doug

[Andrew Harrell]

Hi Adhika!

Lovely shot, great pose, great focus. Diane wanted a bit of top/bottom crop; I would like a sliver more canvas on the left. Your explanations of how you post-processed are very detailed and appreciated for those of us still learning how to do these things. :)


AP

[Adhika Lie]

Thanks so much everyone. This is probably one of my favorite shot of this bird. That's right though I could go a little bit tighter on the top and bottom and probably more on the left.

Your explanations of how you post-processed are very detailed and appreciated for those of us still learning how to do these things. :)

ETL is a great place to learn. I am glad I can share one thing or two; just take it with a grain of salt

[Stuart Philpott]

Adihka,who doesn't love peregrines Mate it's a stonker of an image the colour palette of the BG is just stunning. Cracking lookback I like your framing,simply put, what's not to like. Also a note of appreciation for the detail in what you have done processing wise
super mate good for you

take care

Stu

[Glennie Passier]

Adhika, This is outstanding! All the good things already said. Love the bird and the BG. Techs look great. You are really pushing that ISO and it has come off a treat. PP is very nice also! I agree with Diane's cropping suggestion.

[Adhika Lie]

Thanks so much, Glennie! I have been pushing my ISO to 3200 and I am really glad to see my camera can do it! :D