The Dove Diner

[Brian Sump]

Had a really cool experience in my own backyard...

Was on an evening video training with my staff and my wife starts waving her cell phone at me through the office window. I peek at my cell phone and she sends me a picture of some hawk in our backyard. Thankfully we were about finished so I wrapped up, grabbed my rig and was able to military crawl through the grass to get a file full of images of this Cooper's Hawk having its way with a dove it tackled in our yard.

Man these moments are so fun and intimate!

R5
840mm
Handheld
ISO 4000
1/200
f5.6

LR and PS. Evicted some white spots on the subject's feathers and slightly blended a small part of the fence slat transition behind. Chose to leave that left most white blob as to keep things as natural as possible.

[kevin Hice]

Great one Brian love the feather in the beak and those eyes just pop. IMO a Goshawks eyes are even better. No complaints here.TFS

[Steve Kaluski]

Good low profile Brian and classic pose.

A bit tight on the LHS, 1/200 a bit low IMHO HH, you could easily have just gone to 6400 if not a bit more to avoid any pixel shift, but...

Overall to me the image is very bright, pulling back the Exposure, reducing the Blue & Green to get a more cleaner white in the feathers makes a big difference, even with. a radial filter on the head and pulling down the exp helps. Darken the FG helps the 'layering too.

Hope this helps
Steve

[Daniel Cadieux]

Ah yes, "hawk bait" as we call the doves around here lol. Although I've never come across a live scene like this, despite it being common enough out there. Awesome to have your wife recognize the opportunity of interest as well!! I love the low angle, head angle, and feathers strewn everywhere. The dove wing feather poking up is an important element as well. I'm liking the image design as is, but can see a version with more room at left as per Steve. Quite a memorable backyard encounter for sure!

[Jonathan Ashton]

Super shot ideal angle, pose etc excellent. Overall the image appears a little bright/thin and vibrant to me

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Brian, a wonderful image of this hawk. Nice to have your wife spotting for you. The image is worth your effort crawling to get into position. Post-processing looks good to me. Thank you for sharing.

[Brian Sump]

Thank you for the thoughts everyone.

The brightness comments surprised me a little but I can see a version with a touch more punch/clarity for sure.

Also noted the room at left.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Brian, the greens are at present very punchy/vivid, so I wouldn’t add any more. Clarity, no idea what that would do except punch up the blacks, again even more????

[William Dickson]

Hi Brian...Very nice image. The POV really makes this one. You captured good detail on the bird and a great HA. I really like the feather in the beak along with the blood. The scattering of feathers add to the image and tells part of the story. I would try reducing the highlights just a wee bit. I experienced the same scenario a couple of years ago when a Sparrowhawk took down a Starling basically on my doorstep. I can imagine how you felt, and well done to your wife. Good work.

Will

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Brian ... what an option in your backyard , having the time to finish work and getting out to shoot this opportunity

Very nice low POV , well timed shot with the head turned towards the camera .... cool . Love the overall layers with tones and colors from FG to BG .... details and sharpness looking good albeit the SS was quite slow . Comp is nice albeit I would prefer more FG and less BG .
I would reduce the blues in the plumage , other than that colors looking good to me.

Very cool shot overall and nicely processed

TFS Andreas