Osprey in flight

[Paul Burdett]

I've had some luck with Ospreys flying in front of me and fairly low down in the sky. Normally I see them high up above me!

7Dii, 100-400@400mm, 1/3200th sec, f6.3, iso800, HH.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Paul that is terrific, super exposure lovely detail , pose is good too. Well done.

[dankearl]

Sharp with a nice pose, The BG is not great....

[John Mack]

The pose is dead on. I also like the framing as well. The background looks pretty neat.

[Bill Dix]

Great upwing flight pose, nice detail and exposure. I'm not crazy about the BG, although it might benefit from a dose of NR. Question: does your Osprey differ from the North American one? This one seems to have less marking on the head, and more on the breast than ours. But maybe that's just an individual thing, or the angle of the shot.

[Paul Burdett]

Jonathan: Thank you for the kid feedback...much appreciated.
Dan: Yes, the BG is the mud flats at low tide..it is what it is I guess.
John. Thank you...I actually don't mind the BG as well.
Bill: Interesting. I recently purchased Topaz Denoise AI and really like it. I'll check the file again, but it looks good on my main monitor. I'm unsure about the Ospreys you have in the States...worth some research I guess.
Thanks all.

[Brian Sump]

Paul, very nice bird here and as noted, good wing position.

Like Bill, I see a difference from the Stateside birds. Possible the blacks are washed out a bit, esp on the head/beak?

Perhaps a gaussian blur on the bkg will help reduce the lateral striations near the bird. It's just a tad distracting from a fine Osprey.

[arash_hazeghi]

Osprey is nice, good exposure, details and wing position , BG is just not working here. if the lumps weren't touching the osprey maybe but as is it is a fatal blow...

TFS

[arash_hazeghi]

Paul, very nice bird here and as noted, good wing position.

Like Bill, I see a difference from the Stateside birds. Possible the blacks are washed out a bit, esp on the head?

Perhaps a gaussian blur on the bkg will help reduce the lateral striations near the bird. It's just a tad distracting from a fine Osprey.

Hi Brain,
just for reference, we should not apply Guassian blur to the BG. it makes the images look fake and unnatural kind of like the iPhone "portrait mode". the reason is that the natural lens blur from its aperture blades is not gaussian. the bokeh does not have a simple mathematical formula and is impossible to produce with simple photoshop filter. blurring a busy BG often makes it worse. unfortunately BG is also like sharpness, you have to get it right in the camera...

[Paul Burdett]

Thank you Brian and Arash. Points(good and bad) noted with thanks.