Black-shouldered Kite

[Morkel Erasmus]

I snapped this BSK in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in South Africa in middle September.

This was my first shot of this raptor relatively close to the car. The sun was already climbing high, although it was just past 9AM.

I cleaned up a lot of branches and thorns around the bird to present a better image.

Your critique much appreciated, as always...

Techs:
Canon 40D with 100-400mm L IS USM
f7.1 @ 1/1600 SS @ ISO-400
Exp +0.3

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Sharpness and eye contact look good. I think you handled the harsh light well. The color of the sky looks a bit unusual, is there a slight color cast?

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks Axel. the sky was slightly hazy on the day - but I will play around with the levels and colour balance of the sky.

[Stu Bowie]

I still need one of these guys. A lovely typical pose, and just love those eyes. Good job with the cleaning up, and the comp works well mate. Great sighting.

[Kiran Poonacha]

Loved the HA brother, Nice details and the comp works well, congrats...

[David Fletcher]

This is very very nice Morkel. Lovely comp and sharpness. Checked for color cast and pushed sat to 100: (easy and quick test to see if colors out of place). Looked fine. VWD!

[Elmar Venter]

I love this. Great pose looking back over the shoulder, comp is great and the eye makes this shot. Well done.

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks for the great feedback Elmar, Dave, Kiran & Stu :)

[Marc Mol]

Nice details and exposure, agree about the BG sky color and prefer your sig in lower corner.

[Arthur Morris]

Good job of handling the high in the sky light. The sky looks a bit magenta. Like the thorns and love the look-back head angle. This may sound strange but I think that 2 or 3 degrees of CCW rotation would really help this one.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

I also see the cast on the sky. Love the eye in this one as the perch. A believe this could need a bit more sharpening on the body, IMO.

[Harshad Barve]

lovely HA , compo and expo , I can see slight color cast
TFS

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Great work bro! I like the intense stare and why not try Maestro's suggested CCW? Handled light well, congrats! :)

[Morkel Erasmus]

sorry - only got round to this one now again :)

thanks for the great comments and suggestions everyone!

here is a repost - rotated 4 degrees CCW to straighten the twig, changed colour balance to increase cyans, blues and greens...
quality suffered cause I worked on the downsized JPEG just to see the effects of the changes.

comments?

[Arthur Morris]

Good job of creating a much more natural sky color. And it looks better to me with the perch on straight. And yes, IQ has suffered a bit. No go back to the optimized file, make the same changes, add some sky top and right, and then repost the perfected image here.

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks Artie

here is one reworked from the large file, with your suggestions applied.

[Arthur Morris]

That's what I'm talking about! Way to go Mork-man.

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks Maestro...:)

[Arthur Morris]

YAW and thank you for being a good and receptive student.