I love these guys, though I only saw them a couple of times in the last year. I captured this image a few days ago now after stumbling across this specimen along a quiet country road not far from home. I noted it was using this hovering technique to look for prey in the grass and allowed a relatively close approach. The original unretouched RAW conversion can be seen here in the ETL forums as Straight Out of Camera assignment.
30D, 300/4L IS and 1.4x, HH, ISO400, f/5.6, 1/2000th, EC 0, available light,
After seeing the slightly visible OOF wire above, I applied a few quick masks, and a light BG blur. While not normally keen to do that sort of extra manipulative PS work, this is one of those special images for me, perhaps my best wingspread to date. So worth the little effort.
Thanks for looking and CC appreciated as always. :)
Very nice catch with good heat turn and angle. If this were mine, I'd select the darker parts of the head and make them lighter. A shadow/Highlight layer may also help. Good thing he was hovering, otherwise, tough game to catch! Thanks for sharing it, Akos.
Super hovering posture captured Akos, showing the downstroke of the wing. I agree with Fabs to maybe try and bring out a little more detail on the head. I would also move him up in the frame a bit.
wow, Akos this is a very good capture with a terrific eye contact. The gaussian blur effect is a bit intense in the upper part of the frame. Congratulations for an excelent action image :-)
Restless Flycatcher hover.
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