Northern Harrier

[John Blumenkamp]

Northern Harrier... Farmington Bay WMA, northern Utah.

7D @ 700mm
1/2500 f/6.3 iso320

C&C appreciated.

Thanks,
John

[Harshad Barve]

John
This is a spectacular shot , amazing pose , liked the compo and BG very much
TFS

[Ofer Levy]

Fantastic pose and composition however this looks to me like a massive crop as I don't see fine detail.

[Rohan Kamath]

very unique pose here...I can just feel the action punch... :)

-Cheers,
Rohan
__________________________________________________
Conservation begins at HOME... We CAN make a difference...

[arash_hazeghi]

Nice dive pose, these are hard to get. Intense fixation on target makes up for the lack of eye contact to some extent. You must have been really far since with 7D and 700mm (eq. 1120mm 18 Mpixles) there isn't much detail left in the image. Still not bad, the bokeh in oof areas looks funny.

[Ofer Levy]

... the bokeh in oof areas looks funny.

I believe this is due to heath haze.

[John Blumenkamp]

Yes, healthy crop of 60% plus... just thought I'd post to share since I thought others might enjoy seeing the pose, etc. ;-) This won't be a wallhanger, but if there are suggestions on improving the image as best as can be done considering the limitiations (especially the vegetation), I'm all ears. Thanks.

[Marina Scarr]

John,

Large crop of not, I love the action/behavior here as well as the environment. Never seen anything quite like this. You did a great job capturing this action. I would use Genuine Fractuals to add some pixels. That program really does a great job with photos that are large crops. Thanks for sharing this.

[Daniel Cadieux]

From the thumbnail I couldn't for the life of me figure out the pose!! As for the odd BG patterns, you may want to try a slight gaussian blur...I'm not normally a fan of that particualr filter, but it may just work out nicely here.

[arash_hazeghi]

Yes, healthy crop of 60% plus... just thought I'd post to share since I thought others might enjoy seeing the pose, etc. ;-) This won't be a wallhanger, but if there are suggestions on improving the image as best as can be done considering the limitiations (especially the vegetation), I'm all ears. Thanks.

If it is a 60% crop and focus is good you should be able to pull a lot more detail (that is 13 mpixels on a 7D), I suggest cropping tighter so that the bird is larger in the frame and then making a layer mask by duplicating the BG and painting the bird. Apply small Gaussian Blur to the entire BG or use gradient tool to apply it to the lower part only. Then re-size the photo and apply USM or smart sharpen (80,0.5,0) to bring out the details.

[John Blumenkamp]

If it is a 60% crop and focus is good you should be able to pull a lot more detail (that is 13 mpixels on a 7D), I suggest cropping tighter so that the bird is larger in the frame and then making a layer mask by duplicating the BG and painting the bird. Apply small Gaussian Blur to the entire BG or use gradient tool to apply it to the lower part only. Then re-size the photo and apply USM or smart sharpen (80,0.5,0) to bring out the details.

Thanks Arash... by 60% plus crop, I mean that less than 40% of original left, so less than 7mp remaining... I'll check the file again tonight, as it might be even less. I'll also spend more time on the image and see what can be done - it was late last night and as mentioned thought others might enjoy seeing the pose, etc, so I posted it with minimal PP work.

One question that is 7D related... have you been experimenting with LR 3 Beta? If so, have you been finding a range of general sharpening settings that seem to work well with full frame 7D images? I was experimenting earlier last night with a higher radius value than I have normally used in the past, and thought it worked better on the 7D images in many cases. Perhaps this is something to post in a different forum, but thought I'd ask here.

Thanks again for the suggestions... I'll give this image more attention tonight, and will be out looking to capture more action like this that fills the frame more fully. ;)

[arash_hazeghi]

Thanks Arash... by 60% plus crop, I mean that less than 40% of original left, so less than 7mp remaining... I'll check the file again tonight, as it might be even less. I'll also spend more time on the image and see what can be done - it was late last night and as mentioned thought others might enjoy seeing the pose, etc, so I posted it with minimal PP work.

One question that is 7D related... have you been experimenting with LR 3 Beta? If so, have you been finding a range of general sharpening settings that seem to work well with full frame 7D images? I was experimenting earlier last night with a higher radius value than I have normally used in the past, and thought it worked better on the 7D images in many cases. Perhaps this is something to post in a different forum, but thought I'd ask here.

Thanks again for the suggestions... I'll give this image more attention tonight, and will be out looking to capture more action like this that fills the frame more fully. ;)

Hi John,

Pose is def good that's why it is worth a rework ;) If the bird is at least 1200 pixels or more you shoould be able to salvage good detail with 7D. I did try LR 3 beta but I don't like it as it makes the 7D files too noisy without extracting much detail beyond what DPP does, colors are usually off compared to DPP and need adjustment/profiling. I also have LR2.5 which I don't use anymore either. My work flow is I convert all my files using DPP 3.7.2 (DVD comes with your 7D) into 16 Bit TIFFs doing basic adjustment such as white balance and tone curve in the converter. then I use photoshop to do the editing which usually involves selecting the BG and putting it on a different layer so I can run NR. then I re-size and sharpen up the bird using smart sharpen (levels, cloning etc. are done before resize)

Hope this helps

[John Blumenkamp]

Hi John,

Pose is def good that's why it is worth a rework ;) If the bird is at least 1200 pixels or more you shoould be able to salvage good detail with 7D. I did try LR 3 beta but I don't like it as it makes the 7D files too noisy without extracting much detail beyond what DPP does, colors are usually off compared to DPP and need adjustment/profiling. I also have LR2.5 which I don't use anymore either. My work flow is I convert all my files using DPP 3.7.2 (DVD comes with your 7D) into 16 Bit TIFFs doing basic adjustment such as white balance and tone curve in the converter. then I use photoshop to do the editing which usually involves selecting the BG and putting it on a different layer so I can run NR. then I re-size and sharpen up the bird using smart sharpen (levels, cloning etc. are done before resize)

Hope this helps

Thanks Arash.. my 7D workflow so far has been as you described (DPP --> 16 Bit TIFF --> PS adjustments). I just started playing with LR 3 Beta (stopped using LR 2.5 as well for 7D images), and the minimal work on this image was with LR 3 Beta. I'll see what DPP does with it, etc, but I do like LR as my primary workflow tool, so I'm ready for Adobe to offer full support of the 7D. Soon, I hope. ;-)

[david cramer]

I hope you can get more detail out of this, as it is a unique catch. Well done!

[David Fletcher]

Don't mean to throw a spanner in the works and upset your workflow, but have you tried ACR instead of DPP. Apparently the anti aliasing filter is very strong on the 7D and ACR pulls it better than DPP. (Info on the Photography Gear -7D soft image, post three link... Darwin ....post here at BPN,...go to bottom of link as Royce Howland was quoted and some comparisons made re DPP v ACR). Worth a look John. Awesome pose and worth looking at. (just cos, I've gone to bed with the dark side, doesn't mean I can't help a fello tog')... Cheers.