'Coup de grace'

[Ian McLachlan]

I was starting to lose light and packing up when this male flew past me at f.35 speed and within 60 seconds was back showing his catch to his girl friend, and then proceeded to severe its neck right in from of me. This prey is a 'Starling 'which is a feral pest in this country. I havnt' done too much with the underwing shadow as the good evening light is where the action is.




D5 PF 500 +1.4
700mm
F8
1/3200
iso1600
hh
Comments much appreciated

[Dorian Anderson]

Outstanding action, and the frame is engaging and interesting despite the steep overhead angle. Neck is a bit hot, and I wish for a bit more detail on the face. It looks overly-smoothed by NR at the moment.
I imagine that results from the need to be at ISO 1600. Having to be at 1600 in bright sun is one drawback with that otherwise awesome lens.

[arash_hazeghi]

The action is superb but I agree IQ isn't good, the whites are blown (ISO was too high?)

The D5 will give a "noise less" image at ISO 10,000 in bright sun like this. What I see is that too much NR and over-sharpening has hurt this image

Do you have the C1P guide?

TFS

[arash_hazeghi]

Ian sent me the raw file and I worked on it a bit, I was able to make some improvements but the main issue with this image is that it is a HUGE crop. What Ian posted above is almost a 100% crop from RAW Can't really crop a 20 mega pixel file so much and get great IQ. furthermore the light angle was not ideal the under-wing are was too dark so I raised the exposure. The bird is TACK sharp so I was able to get what I got but it won't be killer...

processed image above notices how much the head and neck details improved

[arash_hazeghi]

and here is the full frame shot, the bird is less than 20 % of the frame, and a bit too dark.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Fantastic action from a killer subject (literally!), but yes that is a tough file to play with. I also find the blues too "electric" (which Arash has also improved upon).

[John Mack]

After seeing the original the image quality help alright for that huge crop. The prey is a bonus.

[Ian McLachlan]

Just got back from chasing more Peregrines .Thanks Arash for having a go at my effort . Out of interest ,what would your settings have been at 840mm? Apart from all that the PF held up very well at 700mm which is all i can handle these days so that is a lens for life .Thanks again Arash and others for your comments.

Ian

[arash_hazeghi]

Hey Ian this one would have been too far even with 850mm unless you were using the D850...I have many great shots like this one but they 9 out of 10 times they are also too far to be a keeper :(