Red-Tailed Hawk Portrait

[Justin Reznick]

I had to blend two exposure as the background was extremely bright. Thanks for your C&C's!

Canon 7D
400mm f/5.6
ISO 500
f/5.6
1/160 sec.

[arash_hazeghi]

Cool shot Justin, like the "smiling" pose and shiny yellow iris of the juvenile. Generally a shot like this looks even better if the head is perfectly parallel to sensor and camera and bird are at the same height (in this case lens was slightly pointed upward). A halo is left around the bird as a result of processing and the bird can take more sharpening. TFS

[Justin Reznick]

Thanks Arash! Attempted to remove halo, here's a repost:

[arash_hazeghi]

looks better Justin, good job with PP. you may want to selectively sharpen the head area only, the lower part is out of dof so more sharpening will only introduce grain.