(Captive) Red tail in flight

[Gary Irwin]

I took this at a flight workshop arranged by Ray Barlow at the Canadian Raptor Conservancy near Simcoe, Ontario.

All criticism appreciated -- especially regarding the cropping and whether the background should be toned down/desaturated.

Captured with a Nikon D300+200-400VR from a monopod+wimberley.
1/1600s f/4.0 at 400.0mm iso320, cropped




For more examples, see http://www.pbase.com/garyirwin/recent_images

Thanks for looking!

[Marc Mol]

Nice and sharp with good exposure.The Raptor need to be positioned in upper third portion of image, a little too low here, also some more room on right as well.

Cheers
Marc

[Doug Brown]

Your image looks pretty sharp although the head is perhaps a little oversharpened. I think the bird is placed too low in the frame and would like to see a bit more room on the right. A little desaturation of the BG is not a bad idea. Do you have a frame with better separation between the beak and the far wing?

[Stu Bowie]

I like the intense look on the head, sharp, and this pops from the BG nicely.

[Arthur Morris]

Sharp; harsh light. I PANO crop would work well here. I am not too sure that the monopod/Wimberley head combo makes sense....

[Tony Whitehead]

Agree with Artie's pano suggestion. Would clean up the presumed jess bridging between tail and near wing.

[Gary Irwin]

Thanks everyone for the excellent suggestions!

There wasn't enough canvas to recrop properly so I used the pano idea (thanks Arthur!). I also remove the jesse stap (good eye Tony!) and darkened the background. Hope you like it...