"Lost Treasure" (Almost)

[David Salem]

One of my shooting buddies and I had a great afternoon with this handsome adult male Kestrel in the beginning of the season last year. We were set up on this branch that he was hunting from and we got him with a bunch of great dragonfly frames. I posted one and will post some others soon.
They were some of the best frames I have of him with prey. He even held some of the dragonflies in his beak as he looked at us. It was a fantastic evening of shooting.
When I raced home to edit some of them I picked the 5-6 best frames with dragonflies in them and processed them. I shot quite a bit so the rest of the images that I culled from got pushed further back in my lightroom library and I hardly ever go back to review them.
I was going back to get the RAW file for one of the dragonfly shots when I luckily found this take off shot that I somehow over looked because I was so enamored with the prey shots. Happens to be one of my better take-off shots of a male Kestrel so I was stoked to find this hidden treasure. Hope you like it.
P.S. Should have posted this a few days ago for the May theme as the light was pretty sweet that evening.

1DX---840mm---f7.1---ss1/2500th---ISO640---Handheld from car@6:30pm---30% crop

Thanks as always for looking and for your input. I appreciate it.

David

[annmpacheco]

Lucky you, lucky us! Imagine this was passed up bc no dragonfly! This is simply gorgeous, the eye contact, the wing position, perch, BG, and most of all the image quality. So very good Dave, good to see you posting here, you're missed!

[Tim Foltz]

Dave nice techs on this shot, super colors and details.

-Tim

[Isaac Grant]

Killer Dave! Nice clean whites. Dynamic wing position. Perfect background. Beautiful details. This has Salem written all over it.

[David Salem]

Thanks Everyone! Glad you like it!

[Jonathan Ashton]

Excellent shot, love the colours textures and detail. The pose is terrific, I wish I had a shot like this stashed away!
I like as presented but I think it might be worth reducing contrast and the brightest highlights, I think there would be even more detail to be shown.

[gail bisson]

A classic David Salem.
Love the BG and the dynamic take-off pose.
I am on my laptop so take this next comment with a grain of salt but the whites on the thigh look borderline hot.
Great shot because I know how hard it is to get this image!
Gail

[Daniel Grossi]

Whoa! Quite a bit of movement you were able to capture, this is one of those shots I feel like I'm never going to get. I agree with Gail about the whites. Maybe like a 1-2% overall highlight adjustment in PS would do it. Also, maybe either a touch more sharpening on the bird or a touch less NR. It's hard to tell which would improve it.

[Bill Dix]

Another Salem beauty. Great dynamic frame with your signature techs. Comments about highlights noted.

[David Salem]

Thanks again everyone!!

As most of you know, I like my whites clean and white, but not blown.
This is exactly what it looks like in nice intense colorful light. I know I am fortunate to primarily shoot in nice intense light and I think if most people did, they would have brighter cleaner whites as that's the way they come out of the camera with propor exposure.
As we have mentioned before, different monitors may have different color, contrast and highlight rendering but I think the Imac's tend to retain highlight details better than most basic monitors, especially laptop monitors. Most people I know with Imacs find the whites bright and clean, but with detail as I do.
That being said, I always appreciate the input and suggestions.
Thanks again.

[arash_hazeghi]

nice Dave, funny I just found a shot a bit similar to this on my own files

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Dave, you mentioned take off shots on my recent post, and you certainly nailed your own take off shot - well timed. I like the forward launch pose with the raised wings, tack sharp, and looks like he had a meal, as I see little 'things' on his beak. Killer BG too.