Landing Red-tailed

[arash_hazeghi]

Red-tailed preparing for a smooth landing against golden colors of Pacific coast, shot right before sunset (6:30PM PST) Half Moon Bay state beach, CA.



Nikon D700 + 200-400 f/4 + 1.4X TC @ 550mm
f/7.1 1/250 sec ISO 2500
HH panning with VR set to active.
SW NX2, foreground slightly blurred.

Hope you like it.

[Harshad Barve]

Arash
One fabulous image with lovely wing pose and sharpness
If mine I may tone down whole image , may be very liitle
TFS

ps, Testing my D700 from totmorrow morning for 2 days , Cant wait to get in fields:)

[Dan O'Leary]

Lovely light and great subject / pose. The head looks a bit soft to me and might benefit from some selective sharpening. Overall sharpness is great given the shutter speed.

[Connie Mier]

This is great, fantastic lighting. But what I like the most is the low angle of the shot.

[Doug Brown]

It's a nice pose and the I like the framing of the bird. Sharpness could be better; 1/250 is pretty slow. When the light gets low I shoot wide open, and for a subject like this I would underexpose by 1/3 of a stop. That would have given you 1/500.

[Stu Bowie]

Arash, I really like the light and detail in this, and what a great landing posture. Sharpness looks good from here, and like the overall colours from the setting sun.

[Kiran Poonacha]

Beautiful one Brother, loved the pose, light and details, congrats..

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Cool pose, good eye contact and light. I agree with Doug on the exposure and would try to selectively sharpen the head. It looks like motion blur, though.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Good comments and advice above, especially concerning the in-camera techs. PP-wise I would remove the bit of OOF grasses almost touching the wing-tip.

[Brian Barcelos]

This is a good image that would be improved with said sharpening and maybe a little contrast boost. Wing and tail spread and dangling talons really add to this image.

[denise ippolito]

Beautiful pose and eye contact. I like the soft warm light and complimentary BG.

[arash_hazeghi]

Thanks guys for comments and feedback. Head has a little 45 degree motion blur, I stopped down a bit a recover dof, hawks are somewhat large and f/5.6 usually doesn't cover all the bird at close distance, but maybe it was better in this case. Does anyone know a filter/technique in PS for reducing motion blur?

[Doug Brown]

I think there's a way to remove motion blur in the advanced options of Smart Sharpen.

[arash_hazeghi]

I think there's a way to remove motion blur in the advanced options of Smart Sharpen.

Thanks Doug, I will try it later tonight.

[Geoff Malosh]

Outstanding shot and light, and at an angle that can be difficult for raptors. In other words, exceptionally well done. I second Doug's suggestion to underexpose by a little bit in these situations to increase shutter speed. Digital is very forgiving and usually nothing is lost with -1/3.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Arash,
I do like the pose....but I have a question as the #'s don't seem to add up.....are the specs correct? or is there a typo in there......judging by the sunny 16 rule.....even at last light and ISO 2500....#'s don't seem correct.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Arash,
I do like the pose....but I have a question as the #'s don't seem to add up.....are the specs correct? or is there a typo in there......judging by the sunny 16 rule.....even at last light and ISO 2500....#'s don't seem correct.

Hi Roman,
Light was actually very low, much lower than what you see in the image which has been contrast and brightness corrected.

ISO 2500 f/7.1 1/250 sec you can check the embedded EXIF.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Arash,
When you say low.....was the sun set?.....was this dusk?....or was this quite past sunset?

[arash_hazeghi]

Hey Arash,
When you say low.....was the sun set?.....was this dusk?....or was this quite past sunset?

6:30 PM PST pretty much sunset, what is the problem here?
This was matrix meter +0.3EV and histogram looks good so the exposure values must have been correct.

[Danny Laredo]

Wow, love the light flight pose and eye contact. The intensity in those eyes is super.
Loved the spread out tail.

Congrats on a fine fine image.

[Roman Kurywczak]

6:30 PM PST pretty much sunset, what is the problem here?
This was matrix meter +0.3EV and histogram looks good so the exposure values must have been correct.

Hi Arash,
Not a problem, just trying to figure it out and comparing to other images in similar light! I would have been about 2/3 to 1 stop faster on the SS with the Mark lll. I do realize that some camera require more light while others like my Mark lll require a bit less...I have seen this with clients and 40D's........I still like the pose and composition, just a bit more toned down for my tastes. I'm also trying to learn how other camera's perform so if one of my clients has one.....I can lend a hand!

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Arash,
Not a problem, just trying to figure it out and comparing to other images in similar light! I would have been about 2/3 to 1 stop faster on the SS with the Mark lll. I do realize that some camera require more light while others like my Mark lll require a bit less...I have seen this with clients and 40D's........I still like the pose and composition, just a bit more toned down for my tastes. I'm also trying to learn how other camera's perform so if one of my clients has one.....I can lend a hand!

Hi Roman,

There is a slight differences between how the gain for different sensors is calibrated and adjusted which leads to slightly differences in exposures between cameras however these differences are very small and can not be more than 1/3 stop as they all comply with international ASA (ISO) standard. There shouldn't be one stop difference between two cameras unless one of the meters is defective.

I think it is not easy to pin point exact exposure from a processed photograph, focal length, angle of light and different reflections can change meter, at long focal lengths you are sampling a small area of a scene.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

6:30 PM PST pretty much sunset, what is the problem here?
This was matrix meter +0.3EV and histogram looks good so the exposure values must have been correct.

According to the EXIF you dialed in +0.67 EC. You probably could have gotten away with no EC in this light.

[arash_hazeghi]

You are right Axel! I checked again and it says +0.7 I must have been looking at the wrong file. +EV was for when I was shooting the hawk against the sky, I forgot to reset it, I agree this can be done with 0EV or -1/3EV nicely. My bad

Thanks

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Roman,

There is a slight differences between how the gain for different sensors is calibrated and adjusted which leads to slightly differences in exposures between cameras however these differences are very small and can not be more than 1/3 stop as they all comply with international ASA (ISO) standard. There shouldn't be one stop difference between two cameras unless one of the meters is defective.

I think it is not easy to pin point exact exposure from a processed photograph, focal length, angle of light and different reflections can change meter, at long focal lengths you are sampling a small area of a scene.

I agree, and that's why I asked about the sun level.......so I will bring up Axel's post of a Red Knot....simalar in tone but the specs quite different; http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ad.php?t=48298
1/640 sec.at f8 and ISO 400 with .67EC.....compare that to your ISO 2500.....hence my question....with your f7.1 and equal EC......that puts the #s at f7.1 and 1/500 sec and ISO 400 at last light for Axel's image.....but you were at ISO 2500 and 1/250 sec!!! So either the sun was covered by clouds or the sun was down......hence my original question.....considering I am looking at a 3 &1/3 stop difference.

[Daniel Belasco]

Beautiful image under dofficult conditions.
The forground looks a little unnatural. I know you said you blurred it, but the blurring looks strange.
Considering the high iso--a fantastic image. It looks like we're going to see some unheard of shots with the super high iso obtainable with modern technology.

[arash_hazeghi]

I agree, and that's why I asked about the sun level.......so I will bring up Axel's post of a Red Knot....simalar in tone but the specs quite different; http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ad.php?t=48298
1/640 sec.at f8 and ISO 400 with .67EC.....compare that to your ISO 2500.....hence my question....with your f7.1 and equal EC......that puts the #s at f7.1 and 1/500 sec and ISO 400 at last light for Axel's image.....but you were at ISO 2500 and 1/250 sec!!! So either the sun was covered by clouds or the sun was down......hence my original question.....considering I am looking at a 3 &1/3 stop difference.

Hi Roman,

I don't think you can compare the two just because the tones look similar, these are different birds, different distance, different BG etc etc. and the light level is obviously very different. If I had overexposed by 3 stops the image would have been toasted at 255 RGB level :eek:

6:30PM PST is twilight in Nor Cal this time of the year, we will switch to PDT this weekend though.