Balancing act - Black-winged Kite

[Dr.Pranay Rao Juvvadi]

Canon 1D Mark III with Canon 500 f/4
EXIF: 1/3200, f/5.6, Evaluative Metering, Aperture Priority, EC 0, ISO 400.

I caught this Black-winged Kite stretching one cloudy evening. The BG is dark clouds. Increased the brightness a bit in PS.

[arash_hazeghi]

Wonderful shot Doc, sharpness is amazing and the red eye is so intense. We have the same kite here except for it is called white-tailed kite, I wonder what the subtle differences are.
Love the sharp claw, it shows the powerful grip this guy has.
I would crop from left and bottom, it's a bit too centered IMO.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Cool pose and moment captured, I also like the sharpness and eye contact. The image looks a bit underexposed. I took the highlight slider to 235 in this one.

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

killer pose/eye contact....great details too,congrats!!!

[Paul Kusmin]

I don't mind the position as is, but like Alex's re-post a bit more as it brings it all out a bit more.
Neat pose!

[Lorant Voros]

Great pose...you captured it well. Nice repost of Axel that made the already good image to it's level. Congratulations.

[John Chardine]

Interesting- in Axel's repost I am seeing some light blotches/artifacts in the sky running in a band from LL to UR under bird. I think they were there in the original but accentuated in the lighter repost. I have seen this effect when a BG is over-blurred in post-processing.

[Loukie Viljoen]

Killer of a shot,Sharp +++, remarkable how similar or even equal to South African Black Shoulder Kite.

[Brian Barcelos]

Dr. Pranay, Very beautiful image and I love the body posture. I like Axels idea and maybe it would look better if done with the RAW image. I also vote for some room taken from left but not the bottom. Congrats

Brian

[Harshad Barve]

lovely image Doc here , I may brighten it up
TFS

[Stu Bowie]

Well timed to capture the stretch, and just love the eyes on these guys. This is sharp, and showing good feather detail. Axel's repost works well.

[Kiran Poonacha]

I like the OP Dr., just wished for a better HA thats all, loved it, congrats...

[Dr.Pranay Rao Juvvadi]

Thanks everybody for looking and suggesting.

Cool pose and moment captured, I also like the sharpness and eye contact. The image looks a bit underexposed. I took the highlight slider to 235 in this one.

Thanks for the repost Axel. I think I need to calibrate my monitor!

Interesting- in Axel's repost I am seeing some light blotches/artifacts in the sky running in a band from LL to UR under bird. I think they were there in the original but accentuated in the lighter repost. I have seen this effect when a BG is over-blurred in post-processing.

I selected the BG and used despeckle and this is the reason for the artifacts, I think. No blurring was done on the BG. Thanks for pointing it out John.

Dr. Pranay, Very beautiful image and I love the body posture. I like Axels idea and maybe it would look better if done with the RAW image. I also vote for some room taken from left but not the bottom. Congrats

Thanks Brian. I will go back to the RAW and repost with the changes.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

This is very nice Sir. Axel's repost does more justice, deservedly so. A wonderful species profile with an almost fabulous HA. Thanks for sharing. :)

[sree.kumar.h]

An wonderful moment captured well. Alex's repost does add value.

remarkable how similar or even equal to South African Black Shoulder Kite.

Loukie, In India this also know as the Balck Shouldered Kite. It's a resident species.