Dark Morph Red-tailed Hawk. Shot yesterday while doing a Christmas bird count in Douglas co, NV with a handheld Nikon D200, 80-400mm VR at 400mm, f8, 1/640th sec, ISO 400, exp manual based on a meter reading of the blue northern sky + 1.33 (should have been +.33:eek:). PP'ed in CS3, cropped about 50%, adjusted levels, hue/sat, selective color (black and gray only) and a bit of shadow and highlight on the underwing, sharpened with Nik Sharpener pro, reduced BG noise with Noise Ninja. C&C welcome.
The hawk is flying slightly away...too bad it wasn't at very least parallel. +1.33 looks like it was good especially that you mention that S/H was applied to the underwing - exposing to the right is a good strategy and using only +.33 instead would have meant more aggressive S/H, which would have meant more introduced noise.
I think you did great with the exposure; +1/3 would not have been enough IMO. Excellent sharpness too. Agree that I'd like to see the bird flying towards you, but that's not always easy to do (especially with an 80-400). Nicely done!