Fall color Griffon vulture (captive)

[Jerry van Dijk]

Panasonic DMC-FZ18, handheld (IS), 60 mm (360 mm DSLR equiv.), ISO-100, F.4.5, 1/80 sec. pattern metering, RAW, -0.2 EC. Selective adaptive unsharp mask on the bird, upped contrast, brightness and intensity slightly on the eye.

Everytime I visit the zoo I'm drawn to the vultures and end up shooting loads of frames of them. First of all, they're HUGE! Second, I really love the texture of those large grey feathers and the contrast with their fluffy white heads. It's fall at the zoo too! Too bad there's a large oof black stick in the BG, but I find it not too disturbing because it follows the line of the vulture.
My first serious bird post here. I'm in doubt if I pushed the sharpening too much on this image. Let me know what you think!

- Jerry -

[denise ippolito]

Jerry, I love it . I find myself drawn to them as well. They are so interesting. Great shot. I like the way you cropped it and I like the fall BG as for the stick- nature isn't perfect

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Jerry,
I like the basic composition, you have sharp details and good color rendition. I modified your image to show you how a much softer, out of focus background, can make the difference in your image. your original had a black diagonal branch going through the background that was distracting. the yellows were too saturated and bright, taking the attention away from your bird. I desaturated the yellows, cloned out the black branch, blurred the colors in the background, opened up the blacks in the wings and the breast, burned in the hot whites along the wings and the face, sprinkled selective sharpening around the eye, and along the contour of the wings, increased saturation and contrast...I hope this presents better for you...:cool:

[Phil Ertel]

Hi Jerry,

What a wonderful bird. I like the pose and comp. Gus's repost is nice and shows a possibility(especially the eye) I personally like the original. background. If it were mine however, I would quick mask/clone out the branch in the background. A very nice image.

Thanks for sharing.

Phil

[Lance Peters]

HI Jerrry - really like the original - would try a little bit of S/H just to open up the shadows a little bit.

Lovely and sharp and like the composition - Would get rid of the black stick in the BG and maybe blur the BG a little. I prefer the sharper bird rather than GUS'S softer repost.

:)

[Desmond Chan]

HI Jerrry - really like the original - would try a little bit of S/H just to open up the shadows a little bit.

Lovely and sharp and like the composition - Would get rid of the black stick in the BG and maybe blur the BG a little. I prefer the sharper bird rather than GUS'S softer repost.

:)

I'm with Lance on this one. I love the colors and the light on the leaves !

[Alfred Forns]

I like the original with a tighter crop since its such a compelling head Might just mute the bg a bit !! Excellent !!!

[Glenn Romain]

Wow really sharp Jerry , plenty of good feather detail ,Well captured.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi all, thanks for your compliments and suggestions! Although I'm not really sure about the overall image, Gus' repost does show me some points of improvement. Will work on your suggestions!
- Jerry -