Australian Hobby

[Colin Driscoll]

A Kestrel-sized small raptor somewhat in the image of a Peregrine both in appearance and flight.
1DXII 400mm F/2.8L II & 2XIII 800mm 1/3200 f7.1 iso800 ev -0.7 SUV as blind and lens support.
Cropped, levels, Neat Image on BG, slight sharpen using Focus Magic, all in PSCC2017.

[Mike Poole]

A lovely look back pose on a complementary perch, and great light. I'd have preferred the bird to have been a bit further too the right in the shot.

The processing looks a little funky on this one, maybe its the focus magic (never heard of that before) but the bird doesn't look particularly natural, I'd be considering a revisit to the PP as it is a really nice frame

Mike

[Bill Dix]

Beautiful light, good pose, perch and background, and a handsome bird. I, too, wish there were more space on the left for the bird to look into, and less on the right. And it may be a tad oversharpened, and/or a largish crop.

[Colin Driscoll]

Thanks, it is a largish crop which at least means I can move the bird more to the right. I was barely 50 meters away but they are small birds so still a challenge for 800 mm.

[Glenn Pure]

Nice shot Colin - you have some heavy duty gear for capturing this one. This has held up well for a hard crop and a shot at long distance. The colours and tones look fairly good to me. I agree the crop needs a rethink. Bird needs to move right in the frame. You could also try a landscape crop if the background suited - but I happen to have a preference for landscape format. Just an option that might be worth a try.

[David Salem]

This is such a nice frame of this beautiful little falcon. Everything looks great but the IQ is suffering a little from the crop, and maybe from the 2x a bit too. Maybe loosen up the crop a little, keeping the bird to the right, and possibly try another sharpening tool. Worth the retry.

[Colin Driscoll]

Thanks again for the invaluable advice. Here's another shot at it. I did try landscape but it just left too much space in my preferred 3x2 format. This time I used PS Smart Sharpen.

[Isaac Grant]

Great pose and perch here against a killer background. Crop on the repost is much better but the image quality is still lacking. Critical focus seems to have not been on the head and it just is not sharp enough.

[arash_hazeghi]

love the light and the pose plus the dark BG. the IQ isn't great but I suspect it is from the processing. Do you have the RAW?