Redtail Perch

[david cramer]

At Bosque. Shortened length of perch and cloned out two distracting branches. Noiseware applied on bg.

D3 with 500vr + 1.7 hand held, f/6.7, 1/500, ev +0.33, iso 1600

[Ryan Schain]

I really like the head angle and background here. I don't know what it is though, but the bird and perch appears quite cartoonish to me, almost like a painting. It almost looks like you applied heavy NR directly to the bird itself, rather than just the BG.

[Joel Eade]

Great pose and colors but on my monitor it looks like the NR is applied to the bird as well.

[david cramer]

No noise reduction on the bird, but this is a heavy crop, and at 1024 px high the detail in the bird isn't holding up well, particularly face and talons.

[Dave Leroy]

Handheld 500mm plus 1.7 at 1/500 is pretty darn good. Nice clean bg with complimentary colours is nice as is eye contact. Well done. Dave

[Jim Fenton]

While I love the files I'm getting out of my D700 (akin to the D3), I find it's only useful for subjects big enough or close enough....the files just don't hold up to heavy cropping.

Side lighting looks a bit harsh and I think this one was just a bit too far away.

That's why I keep a D300s as well :)

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Angle, eye contact and BG look good, Too bad that it is such a heavy crop. I would tone down the highlights more, especially perch and feet.

[Todd Frost]

Nice pose. Agree on not holding up to the crop, to bad. Fantastic bg colors.
Todd