Apart from the light this is really nice Kaustubh! Like the detail, the low angle, sharpness and the eye contact. Did you do anything to the BG, like Guassian blur??
Krijn, no I havent done any blurring on BG. did some NR on BG which causes some softness. But the BG is blurred because I was very close to the bird. This is almost full-frame. f/5.6 would have been better for blurring but since I was so close, I wasn't sure the tail would have been sharp at wide-open.
The best shot would have been if I had shot from a couple of feet to my right. I was crawling and approaching. he flew off before I got to that angle. But hey...this was a lifer for me...so more than happy to get this one.
Thx everyone. I will go back to the RAW file and see if I can do something else in processing the whites.