Hi Joe - Like the pose, exposure looks good, Looks a tad soft on my screen.
I would have swapped some of the SS for some more DOF.
I selectively sharpened the bird - worked the eye a tad and desaturated the blues just a little (Sorry I am a nikon user - LOL)
Looks good Joe I like the re post with the more natural bg and might even desat a little more !!! .. .btw when focusing would try placing the af point on the bird's eye !!!
My guess is that the blues went saturated with whatever contrast adjustments you made Joe. The bird is a bit too contrasted to my eye based on having looked at a lot of them in pictures(hundreds of thousands). The repost is on the right track but looks oversharpened also. Or you might try different parameters in the settings. Photokit luminance sharpening I think would do a nice job here. Some minor tweaking and I think you'll have this one spot on.
Thanks everyone for the comments and suggestions. I was aware that I had missed the focus on this shot but felt that it was worth trying to salvage.
I took the shot last week in mid afternoon with the sun low in the south west winter sky. The sky was deep blue and the sun light up the hawk spectacularly.
Here is my re-posted image with the sky desaturated ligher than Lance's version, sharpening somewhere between my original and Lance's, contrast is similar to above as I feel this fairly realistic due to the lighting on the bird.
I really due value your comments and suggestions and feel that this re-post is a significant improvement.
Joe - This has a great dynamic feeling to it, and I like the position of the bird in the frame. You don't say how big the crop was, but you've gotten good detail. On my screen I don't see any oversharpening in Lance's repost. I like his Nikon blue (I guess I'm also biased) but like the de-sat of your repost as well. I also like the contrast. Nicely done!
Red-tailed Hawk
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