Pale Chanting Goshawk

[Jan Fourie]

Taken in Kalagadi Transfrontier Park in South Africa
Camera : Canon 1 D mark 111
Lens :Canon 500mm f 4
f/8
Shutter speed :1/3200
ISO 500
Exp +1/3

[Juan Aragonés]

The Bg needs some noise and dust spots cleaning and I would try a different crop with less room at the top and more at the bottom and perhaps even a more wide crop, but not sure. I did some levels adjustment on the BG and shadows (original color balance keeps untouched). I like this image a lot, the species is really gool and instead of the fact that the light is really intense, light reflected from the ground makes its magic on the underparts of the goshawk. In a perfect world I would ask for more separation between the head and the right wing. Very good job :)

[arash_hazeghi]

Nice work Jan, you did well given the overhead light and Juan's repost is an improvement.

[Ken Watkins]

A bird in flight I have always wanted, but failed miserably.
The original post lacked detail and had a lot of noise in the BG. Juan's repost is amazing, I for one would like to know how it was done especialy to a small JPEG.

[niranjan sant]

beautiful flight shot,with nice wing position

[Juan Aragonés]

A bird in flight I have always wanted, but failed miserably.
The original post lacked detail and had a lot of noise in the BG. Juan's repost is amazing, I for one would like to know how it was done especialy to a small JPEG.

Ken it is more complicated to explain than to do. I use several layers and I work in each one of them a different part of the image. In this case, I made a selection of the BG with the magic wand tool and duplicate the layer. In the new copy I inverted the selection and deleted the bird, then I inverted the selection once again to work in the Bg. I applied noise reduction and cloned out the dust spots. Then I created a new copy of the layer and added a touch of gaussian blur (abouy 1,4) because the noise reduction filter was not enough. Some levels adjustment and the Bg is ready to go.
Now, using the original layer, and the same selection, I copy the layer and delete de Bg to work on the bird and I made the levels adjustment and sharpening. Of course, it is much better to work with the RAW file.

Please, have a look on this old thread in which I explained some tricks about this processing method http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ad.php?t=11412

[Peter Farrell]

Very nice shot, Juan's re-post covered any comments I had.

[Arthur Morris]

Nice capture and killer repost by JA. Juan, not sure if you realized it but you reduced the light halo around the far wing to a shadow of its former self. With the bird angling towards you Jan, the wing position works well.

[Juan Aragonés]

Nice capture and killer repost by JA. Juan, not sure if you realized it but you reduced the light halo around the far wing to a shadow of its former self. With the bird angling towards you Jan, the wing position works well.

Yes Artie, I did but forget to say. Very good eye. :)
That kind of halo is a collateral effect of nosie reduction filter (sometimes), shadows/highlight filter or even Gaussian blur. Most part of the times is really subtle and it is more visble in the thumbnail than in the full size image. A good trick to check if we have this kind of halo after a processing job is to reduce the image at the size of a thumbnail. It is easy to avoid that kind of effect making a good selection with a mask. In this case, the halo was on the original post and I used the cloning stamp to fix it.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Juan. I was wondering if it just went away or if you did something to eliminate it (as you stated).

I have very few if any problems with such halos since switching from Feathering to Refine Edges.

[Jan Fourie]

thnks for your comments and rework ,this is how we learn
jan