I can see you

[John Chardine]

This is a "grab" image of a Rough-legged Hawk (Buzzard) made on the Tantramar Marsh, near Sackville, New Brunswick. The bird was hunting in a field next to the road and had a good look at me stopped in the car, looking at him/her. Hung out the window and made one image. Five seconds later the bird flew right towards me and landed on a small spruce tree close to the car. More images were made!

Just cropped, Levels/Curves and sharpened. There's a little noise on the light underwing but I didn't want to reduce the detail in this area so left as-is.

Comments welcome!

Canon EOS 50D, 70-200 mm f4 IS, 1.4 tcII @ 280 mm
capture date: Friday, January 2, 2009 11:47:40 AM
exposure program: Aperture Priority
ISO speed: 400
shutter speed: 1/4000
aperture: f8.0
exposure bias: -0.3 (accident; not sure why)
metering: Pattern
flash: OFF

[Fabs Forns]

Great head turn for eye contact, of a great looking bird. I saw a few in Wyoming, but good picture to boot.
I'd try a bit of shadow/highlight to see if you get more detail out of the under wing. Good reflexes, John.

[Stephen Stephen]

John I love the eye contact. Fabs has offered a good suggestion re. Shadow highlight. Congratulations this is better that anything I have on this species.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great find and I like the incoming pose and eye contact. I might crop a bit tighter. Too bad about the negative EC but I don't think the noise is so bad.

[Mike Lentz]

Very nice, I look the look in and the mixed in hazy clouds! I've been loading up on these guys lately in a very large field were five of them are living.

[Art Kornienko]

Real nice John, the eye looks so nice, I like the crop and the beautiful blue sky, very sharp with a 1.4 at 280. Great grab.

[Doug Brown]

Pretty good detail for only 280mm of focal length! The eye contact is great. I don't mind the noise; I'd take a photo like this of a Rough-Legged Hawk any day.

[bill kominsky]

Agree totally with the comment Doug made, would take it any time John.

Bill

[John Chardine]

Pretty good detail for only 280mm of focal length! The eye contact is great. I don't mind the noise; I'd take a photo like this of a Rough-Legged Hawk any day.

Thanks Doug and others. I think if someone is asking why they should buy a 50D I would say that it is (partly) for images like this. It really shows the power of the 50D to be able to crop when you need to and still maintain good detail, so long you have other technical details correct. Here's the original for comparison. The catchlight in the eye does not even show after resampling. I have tried crops like this with the 40D and they don't hold as well.

[Stu Bowie]

Eye contact at its best. Well exposed looking up to the sky, and nice and sharp too. Well captured John.