The Approach

[Martin Currie]

This is shot was taken at the Belly Mack Red Kite feeding station near Dumfries. This was my first test all my newly purchased Canon 1DX.

When by imported the shot into like them I noticed that there wasn’t much room between the end of the primaries and the edge of the canvas, therefore I imported into Photoshop and used the content aware tool to add some more sky to the top and bottom of the image. For me, the most pleasing aspect of this image is the eye contact with the red kite.

In photo shop I made only small minor adjustments to the overall exposure and added small amount of sharpening.

I’d like to hear peoples comments on this image, I feel it works but I’d like a second opinion.

Thanks for looking

Martin

Shot details
Body: Canon 1DX
Lens: 500 mm F4.0 Mk.II
ISO 400
F5 .6
1/2500th

[Randy Stout]

Martin:

Dramatic pose, good eye contact as mentioned, the clouds add depth to the image.

The angle of the pose and direction of gaze suggests a vertical crop to play out the diagonal axis of the frame. Bit more contrast to make the clouds pop.

Purely personal taste, but this images lends itself to a variety of options. I did add more space below so it worked the diagonal better and gave him room to dive into.

The clouds are starting to get some blocking from my changes, but you can easily get a nice result working from the original file.

Cheers

Randy

[Martin Currie]

Hello Randy

Thank you for the reply, heres another edit showing a little more canvas in the bottom of the frame. Ive also added two graduated filters to give the clouds a little more pop. Only a little.

let me know what you think.

Thanks again

Martin

[Randy Stout]

Martin;

I like that even better. Always fun to try alternative presentations for images.

Well done.

Cheers

Randy

[David Salem]

Nice dynamic pose and sharp details in this one and I like the last vertical post best in the sense of color and details too. Well done