Northern Harrier

[Joe Ford]

Canon 1DmkIII
Canon EF 500 f4 + 1.4TC
f10 1/2000 +2/3 EC ISO 400

Shot from a portable blind, on tripod, manual focus, on day with a heavy cloud cover and fresh snow. Monday morning quarterbacking tells me I probably needed to compensate even more for this relatively very dark bird.
Thanks for comments.

[Mark William]

Love these creatures and I like the position of the bird. By your own critique a tad dark. Maybe Shadow and Highlights adjustment would open up the dark areas a little and then address the noise. Still a keeper in my book. Nice shot Joe.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Nice take-off pose and composition. The "perch" in LRC nicely anchors the comp. I agree the bird could go lighter. I especially wish the eye area was opened up more. Hope you photograph in RAW as this image certainly looks workable. If not then some judiscious use of S/H in PS should help (but be careful of colour noise being introduced).

[Rene Quenneville]

Beautiful composition and sharpness on the bird's head. Increasing saturation will help completing the S&H.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the pose and details. Adding to the other comments, I would lower the color temperature a few degrees, I see a slight red cast on my monitor.

[Arthur Morris]

2 minutes in PS mostly with Curves. Also reduced Red SAT 35 points. And a bit of Eye Doctor work. BTW, wonderful take-off pose. Manual focus: what's that??? Actually a great job....