female northern harrier

[Bob Smith]

It's marvellous to see when these birds suddenly flare their wings and tail and turn on a dime as they glide over the marsh hunting mice. 7DII, EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 IS MII @ 400mm, ISO 400, f/6.3, 1/1600, HH, cropped to 37% of original pixels. C & C will be much appreciated and carefully considered.

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[Glennie Passier]

Bob, what a beauty! Love the flared tail and wing feathers stretched to the max. The pose is wonderful.

I am unable to comment on the colour of the bird, but feel there could be a slight yellow cast? My only "wish" would be to separation of the head from the wing. The shadow of the birds far wing, to me, compliments the paler breast. (I hope I haven't shot my foot off there)

I know you would have given the composition a lot of thought. The composition is pleasing to me, but wonder about a small slice off the RHS (which would make it more square) might work.

Great stuff Bob.

[Andrew Harrell]

Lovely shot Bob! Agree with Glennie about the pose -- beautiful out-stretched tail and wings, just wish there was a little more separation of the head. Alas, the Bird-Photography Gods giveth, and they taketh away ..... and thus make us come back for more!

I do think I see what Glennie is seeing as a cast ... what I would love to know is how to remove it ( I have many photos with different color casts, and have not had a great amount of success removing).

Really a beautiful BIF shot here --- hoping there will be more coming!


AP

[Bob Smith]

Thanks for the input Glennie & Andrew. I do have a tendency to lean towards enriching the yellow side of WB in my images and I did play with it and move it towards the blue side before posting this so I guess I need to be prodded even more in that direction with a sharp stick. I moved the WB from 6096K to 5067 K in this RP but found I got the most significant reduction of the yellow by moving the sat. slider in HSL to the left 30 pts. Is this an improvement? I have slightly better head positions from this series of exposures but chose this one for the brightness of the eye over the others.

[Glennie Passier]

Bob, How are you processing? In ACR? PS? In ACR I found the little eye dropper tool to be the most effective at giving the correct white balance. Moving the HSL slider also seems to have worked. But try the eyedropper. Find the most neutral grey you can and pop the eye dropper onto it. In PS, the same little eye dropper tool is in the Curves Layer adjustment panel. There, there is black grey and white.

I like to find a bird image with a good eye. I think it is so important. Don't be worried about brightening the eye on other images if you think they look a little dull, if this is within your scope of ethics

I like the repost better.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Bob, the first image has the correct plumage colors of a female northern harrier (this is a young bird), the reports has a magenta cast and looks a bit dull. As for shadows, there are no visible shadows in this image thanks to soft light.

Harrier is sharp and exposure is good, but the main issue here is the HA that is slightly angled away from us and the beak that has merged with the far wing, other wise pretty much a very good frame and did I mention the fanned tail.

[Bob Smith]

Thanks Glennie---I use Mac Aperture for all my PP except NR where I bounce between Dfine and Topaz. I tried the eye dropper and it's a neat trick. It took care of the yellow cast with one easy click and the overall image didn't seem to go as dull as in the 1st RP, thereby addressing that concern as raised by Arash. The sky didn't wash out as much either. When the eye is not really well lit up like this one I usually touch it with a small, eye-size brush of saturation and then with a small dodging (i.e.. lightening ) brush. PS magic probably has a better way of doing that but until I get there this is an easy way in Aperture to bring out the eye. Rather than taking a slice off the RHS I just reopened the crop tool and shifted the bird a tad more over to the right side of the space.

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[Bob Smith]

Thanks Arash. How can you tell this is a young bird? I thought my 2nd RP addressed the magenta cast but on looking at it as I type this I'm not so sure. Since you liked the colour of the OP more I'm attaching here the next exposure in the series in which I have gone with an even yellower WB, which to me translates as a faint tawny brown of the "white" feathers . It also has a better head position I think and on reconsideration the eye is probably just as well presented as in the OP.

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[arash_hazeghi]

Bob the image in pane 1 has the right color, just stick with that. The last image looks too yellow to me

In adult birds the iris is bright yellow in while in juveniles it is dark brown, young birds fall in between

best
Arash

[Adhika Lie]

I have never seen the bird in person, Bob, so I can't comment on color accuracy. But I really like the details on the feathers and the bird is sharp as a whole. My favorite part is the tail.

[Charles Robinson]

This is the same camera and lens I use , very impressed with your wonderful shot.

[Bob Smith]

Thank you Charles.