harrier in last light

[arash_hazeghi]

Female juvenile northern harrier . shot with Nikon D850 and 600E FL + TC-14E III ISO 1600 f/5.6 at 1/3200sec hand held and processed with C1P. hope you like it

[Colin Driscoll]

Really rich light and lovely detail contrasting with the BG. Unusually for you Ari, there are some masking errors between the primaries and the tail feathers. There is also something going on beside the bird's left eye. Did you use Blur, Average or equivalent on the BG?

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Collin, thanks for pointing out the masking artifact I fixed them. What you see above the base of the beak is not form the left eye it is small soft feathers, northern harriers have the tiny feathers in the base of their beak so it is natural.

I never blur the BG, blurring the BG is probably the worst thing you can do it it, as it will make the BG very unnatural to the trained eye. The blur you apply in Photoshop uses a Guassian distribution whereas the blur or bokeh from a fast lens is not Guassian, that's why the images with blur BG often look unnatural.

I only use calibrated NR to remove BG noise, my noise reduction process is explained in detail in my PP guide

cheers

[Joseph Przybyla]

Looks good to me.. I don't see any cloning artifacts. Guess you fixed them and reposted the image. Just wondering what you would have to clone with such a pure background? Thank you for sharing. Arash.

[arash_hazeghi]

Joe it was a masking artifact that I fixed not a cloning artifact.

Beat

[dankearl]

Another beautiful frame, Arash... light is great, I love the "whiskers" these birds have around the beak.

[William Dickson]

No nits here, very well captured. Lovely flight pose and HA. Love the BG colour.

Will

[John Mack]

Love dorsal shots like this one. Nice and detail and sweet light of course.