Wild Kestrel

[John Harper]

Hi There

Not quite sure if this qualifies as a Wild Shot so i thought i would post it here to be safe. This was taken at my usual haunt of the Hawk Conservancy in Hampshire in the UK. They have a wild Heron and Raptor feed at the end of the afternoon where Wild Great Grey Herons, Red Kites and Kestrels help themselves to some free food.

This was taken from a hide that is setup at the edge of the Chalkland meadow where the birds are fed, I had tried dozens of times to get a sharp shot of the Kestrels, but the birds move so fast you have only about 2-3 seconds before they are out of range. I was however pleased with this shot as its one of the few in focus ones.

Comments welcome

John

Tech Details

EOS 1D MKIIN

EF 500mm F4 + 1.4TC

ISO 640 1/2000 @ F5.6

[Lana Hays]

Hi John
Well....it this Kestrel is wild and unbanded it can be posted in the other forum.
The image is pretty graphic......and I think an interesting pose. I like the grasses to add to the habitat. There is a lot of noise with this image.....perhaps a large crop or originally shot dark and then lightened in PS. I might like a slightly different composition....perhaps a little more room on the right.....not quite sure.

[John Harper]

Hi John
Well....it this Kestrel is wild and unbanded it can be posted in the other forum.
The image is pretty graphic......and I think an interesting pose. I like the grasses to add to the habitat. There is a lot of noise with this image.....perhaps a large crop or originally shot dark and then lightened in PS. I might like a slightly different composition....perhaps a little more room on the right.....not quite sure.

Hi Lana

You are right on both counts it is a large crop and i have no more to the right as he was just disappearing off frame. I am trying to improve my PS skills but i obviously have a way to go yet. But thanks for the comments.

John

[Jim Neiger]

Hi John,

Good job capturing this Kestral in flight. No an easy thing to do. The prey also adds much to the image. I love the colorful oof bg. The image overall has a sort of washed out look. It needs more contrast. This may have been caused by the shadow highlight tool or by brightening up the image. The bg does look noisy as Lana mentioned. You may wish to try sharpening the bird selectively and not the bg.

[John Harper]

Hi John
Well....it this Kestrel is wild and unbanded it can be posted in the other forum.
The image is pretty graphic......and I think an interesting pose. I like the grasses to add to the habitat. There is a lot of noise with this image.....perhaps a large crop or originally shot dark and then lightened in PS. I might like a slightly different composition....perhaps a little more room on the right.....not quite sure.

Hi Lana

I have revisited the image and was able to adjust it to give a little more space to the right hand side. I have also tried to reduce the noise on the background a bit and introduce a bit more contrast. My Photoshop skills are not particularly advanced but as they say I am here to learn.

[Jim Neiger]

Wow! big improvement, John. Good job. It could be tweaked a bit more, but this is pretty close.

[Ian McHenry]

As Jim says the 2nd shot stands out more.
A fine capture overall. But I have a thing about a raptor's wing on the "upbeat" so to speak ( Left wingtip)
If you had time to set camera in high speed continuous you might have more neat captures.
Best Wishes: Ian McHenry

[John Harper]

As Jim says the 2nd shot stands out more.
A fine capture overall. But I have a thing about a raptor's wing on the "upbeat" so to speak ( Left wingtip)
If you had time to set camera in high speed continuous you might have more neat captures.
Best Wishes: Ian McHenry

Hi Ian

Thanks for the comments, the camera was on High speed continuous but it was set to prioritize focus rather than speed. I only got 5 shots in the sequence and 3 of those were soft on the focus front. The wild kestrels are by far the most challenging subject i have tried to photograph in flight in terms of pushing the cameras AF to its limits. Still there is always my next visit. :)

I post below a shot from another day of the female of the pair to show you what i mean. The wings are up but the focus is soft :(

John