Red Shouldered Hawk

[RevCurmudgeon]

Red Shouldered Hawk at Felsenthal NWR, Union County, Arkansas. It ducked into these bushes to avoid a mob of Redwing Blackbirds that were harrassing it. Image taken early morning 04-11-09.
Canon 40D, 500/4 + 1.4tc, f5.6, 1/320s, ISO 100, uncropped, as shot.

[Tony Whitehead]

Nice and close. Good light on the bird and nice not to have any shadows crossing it. Slightly better eye contact would have been nice - some localised eye work may be an option. Selecting and blurring the BG may help isolate the bird a little. Don't understand the uncropped comment as 40D produces 2:3 aspect ratio images which this isn't.

[RevCurmudgeon]

My bad. Forgot that I had cropped out some of the background off the top!

[Arthur Morris]

Sharp with a good EXP but this image has many serious problems: the background is extremely busy and the bird's face is in shadow with the sun from the right. A cloudy day would have helped soften the harsh BKGR contrast.

[RevCurmudgeon]

Thanks Artie. I am very new at bird photography so your critique is very helpful. BTW - I do have your Art of Bird Photography II CD. That may help explain why the exposure was as good as it was.

[Arthur Morris]

YAW Rev, When you first start and get close to a hawk, all that you can see is the hawk. With time, you will become more selective and look for cleaner settings. You will begin to notice the BKGR. Good luck!

[RevCurmudgeon]

Thanks for all the constructive critiques of my admittedly busy image. Here is another image from that same series, but with a gaussian blur applied to all that busy background. I don't know if this image is much of an improvement, but at least it was fun to see what is possible using the tools in Photoshop. I suppose it is all a part of the learning process.

[Tony Whitehead]

Good job on the BG - perch selection could be feathered a little more to soften the transition but impressive result.