Northern Harrier with Snow Goose

[Bill Dix]

This somewhat bizarre frame is made even more so by the New Mexico sunset reflected in the water. From Bosque del Apache last November.

D500, Sigma 150-600C @ 550mm, ISO 2500, 1/500s @ f/7.1 manual.

[John Mack]

A very cool image here. Love the color in the water. A nice view of the harrier.

[William Dickson]

There's something about it Bill...but I can see where the bizarre is coming from....Its pretty nice, quite 'watery' looking. I would try reducing the reds a wee bit...is a big crop.. Definitely worth a 2nd look.....great scene. If you have it..more on the bottom would work better

Will

[arash_hazeghi]

superb action here, love the prey and the harrier. I am not sure what's bizarre about it. IQ doesn;t look great for an adult female, it has a paintary look that is often result of too much NR/heavy cropping. but owning a D500 I know it becomes iffy at ISO 2500.

TFS

[Randy Stout]

Bill:

Great natural history image, I didn't know a harrier could take down a goose.

It does has a painterly feel, and agree with Arash about possible causes. I shoot the D500 still, and yes the noise can be an issue. I have been using Topaz DeNoise AI recently, and with some finesse find that I can handle the noise better and retain details than with any of the other NR software I have used. It is quite slow to process, as it is doing a lot of work in the background, but for an image that I really want to maximize, it is worth it.

Randy

[Bill Dix]

Thank you all. I don't know if a Harrier can take down a Snow Goose. I imagine it's possible that the goose succumbed from other causes and the harrier just took advantage.

I don't have any more room at the bottom in this frame. I took a number of frames, some with more room at the bottom; but the bottom was very cluttered with debris, and this had one of the better poses. I should have looked more carefully at the histogram when taking all those frames, since I underexposed this by close to a full stop. Thus a lot of noise and resultant loss of IQ in the processed image. I did process it with Topaz DN AI and tried to find the best compromise between noise and detail, but at ISO 2500 and underexposed, this is what I get.

Will, this is not a huge crop. 4500 x 2531 px in the cropped image. The original was very blue, so I used the Snow Goose to set the white point, which warmed up the image considerably.

[Mike Poole]

Maybe not the best IQ frame you'll ever have, but I think on this occasion the subject matter has taken over and I still really like the result. Light and action is top notch

Mike

[arash_hazeghi]

Thank you all. I don't know if a Harrier can take down a Snow Goose. I imagine it's possible that the goose succumbed from other causes and the harrier just took advantage.

I don't have any more room at the bottom in this frame. I took a number of frames, some with more room at the bottom; but the bottom was very cluttered with debris, and this had one of the better poses. I should have looked more carefully at the histogram when taking all those frames, since I underexposed this by close to a full stop. Thus a lot of noise and resultant loss of IQ in the processed image. I did process it with Topaz DN AI and tried to find the best compromise between noise and detail, but at ISO 2500 and underexposed, this is what I get.

Will, this is not a huge crop. 4500 x 2531 px in the cropped image. The original was very blue, so I used the Snow Goose to set the white point, which warmed up the image considerably.

the software isn’t doing a good job with feather details. Did you try NI? If it was big in the frame might be salvageable

[Brian Sump]

Bill, really love the story here (from the picture that is) even though we may not know exactly what occurred. Snow Geese are relatively uncommon in many areas and Harriers aren't a dime a dozen like RTH or migrating Swainsons so it just adds to the uniquness.

I agree the water is maybe a little strong on reds but the even light looks fantastic.

[Jan van Holten]

Really great koment you've got there. The foreground was a bit messy I'll guess?