Red-Tailed Hawk, immature

[Craig Markham]

Canon EOS-1D Mark III
500mm f/4 IS
1/3200 sec, f/4.0
ISO 800
Partial metering, Manual exp comp 0
Cropped to approx 85% of original frame
20 Oct 2008, 14:25

Oregon's Willamette Valley has a terrific raptor migration during the fall and winter months. The open grass seed fields here provide them with plenty of voles and mice, and from the hedge rows the birds have a good view of the mowed fields. Many of the farmers now erect perches for the birds to protect their crops.

This cooperative immature red-tailed hawk gave me a convincing sales pitch that I must get a bean bag. I went through some pretty funny contortions to support the camera/lens on my knees while pointing it out the window of my car. I think the bird stayed for a while just to watch the show.

[Alfred Forns]

Just fine all around for me Craig !!! Excellent find and came up with a superior image !!! Love that bg and simple perch !! Big Congrats !!!!

[Joseph Martines]

As a novice I appreciate the exif data provided and the "set up."

It has taken me a while to learn that one must understand the prey before it can be captured!!

Now I have to think about a bean bag!!

Nice capture...

[Arthur Morris]

Ah, the relatively great distance to the subject provided you with enough d-o-f for the rear view. Good light angle and head turn. Woulddl have liked a simpler perch.

All those with super-telephotos need look no further than the BLUBB for a big lens beanbag. I designed it myself:

http://www.birdsasart.com/blubb.htm

[Mark Schmitt]

I like the perch. The lichen adds character and variance to the otherwise brown monotones. Good image. Change nothing. :)

[Craig Markham]

Thank you all for your kind comments. I had actually been making telephoto images documenting a polluting landfill a few minutes earlier and was on my way home. I spotted three hawks hovering and interacting over a field along the road, and pulled over as this one landed on a roadside bush opposite the afternoon sun. I nearly had a conniption when I saw the possibility of this image in the works. The hawk stayed put, and I managed to park, get my rig together and capture several nice images. In this frame he finally gave me the head angle I wanted. I cloned out a few random OOF sticks from the bottom of the frame, but left the perch fully intact. I do like the complementing color in the lichens, and that they add a little contextual footnote. I considered some pruning to simplify the perch, but the hawk said no.

[Eleanor Kee Wellman]

Nicely exposed, with good detail and the think I like most about it is the different and interesting perch!!! Well done!

[Craig Markham]

Here is a composite of head and talon/perch details from this image at full resolution to give an idea of the limits of detail in the image. Some noise at 800 ISO and perhaps slight OOF or minor camera movement may have caused some further loss of feather details. I was 80 feet from the bird, but that gave me a nice background blur. I experimented with additional noise reduction and sharpening in Paintshop Pro X, but felt that this only caused detail loss without real image improvement.

I haven't seen posts here where people have provided full resolution insets like this to reveal the level of clarity in the image, but thought I'd give it a try if there's interest. I can take it down later, if you don't want us taking up server space with these add-ons. Feedback on this, anyone?

[Arthur Morris]

As I have been saying for a while the MIII files are pretty impressive...

[Arthur Morris]

I like the perch. The lichen adds character and variance to the otherwise brown monotones. Good image. Change nothing. :)

I like the lichens too but the perch simply is to chaotic for me. I would have much preferred something simple with lichens.