Juvenile Red-Shouldered Hawk

[Erich Stevens]

Here's a juvenile red-shouldered hawk I captured in the filtered, grayish light of early evening yesterday. He was perched at the edge of the Everglades, just off southbound 869 near the Sunrise Blvd. exit. I know the image isn't exactly fantastic, but I wanted to share it because I thought you all might enjoy the good eye contact. Unfortunately, I couldn't get very close, so this is a heavy crop, about 50% of the original. Also, I continue to be frustrated by the soft images produced when using my 2x teleconverter. Had to do a lot of sharpening and NR on this one. I do like the warmth of the light. It was a rainy afternoon, so I was grateful that the lingering haze prevented the light from being too harsh.

Nikon D80, 300/2.8 manual + 2x, ISO 400, 1/1000, f/4 (I think).

[Eric Wilmot]

Love the eye contact on this one. Love the light as well but the position of the bird was not ideal with the sun hitting hard from the left. I would probably try to highlight the right part of the bird witch is kind of dark on my monitor. I like the perch too but would crop a bit at the bottom.

I also have some softness problems with my 2X teleconverter...

[Bryan Hix]

Hi Erich,
Did you use a tripod or was this handheld? The eye contact is nice, but you really can't see the right side detail very well. The image still is a bit soft and the angle of the sun and presence of strong shadows really effects the overall quality of the shot in my opinion.

[Erich Stevens]

Hi Erich,
Did you use a tripod or was this handheld? The eye contact is nice, but you really can't see the right side detail very well. The image still is a bit soft and the angle of the sun and presence of strong shadows really effects the overall quality of the shot in my opinion.

Hi Bryan,

I used a tripod. Yes, I acknowledged the image has some serious flaws but I couldn't resist posting it anyway because of the eye contact. My monitor shows acceptable detail on the bird's right side with the heaviest shadow area being the left eye. Believe me, I wanted to move more to the hawk's left and get that sun behind me but I would've been knee deep in mud!

[Charlie VanTassel]

I've had pretty good luck with the 1.7X, but the 2X is pushing it.... I'd like to see more of a side view also. Still pretty nice and a good effort.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Ditto the light angle issue, but you know that already. You could still try to lighten the bird's left side (our right) if it doesn't introduce too much noise issues. The perch is strong enough to have kept all the space down there to showcase it, but I think you could crop the image a tiny bit at right.

[Harshad Barve]

lovely eye contatc, all good points well covered here
TFS