Up Close and Personal

[Richard Waas]

This red Shouldered Hawk was just sunning himself and was letting us get up close and personal. I photographed this beauty with my Canon 1D MK IV handheld. ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/1600 sec, EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM, 400 mm, Evaluative Metering, Auto exposure, Auto WB, No Flash. Image cropped. Comments Welcome.....

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Hi Rich, well positioned in the frame (nice spacing) and exposure techs seem solid. Love the stern look, super eye and HA. I especially like the use of lighting to illustrate texture and depth - sweet mage.

[arash_hazeghi]

like the intense raptor look, exposure is good too, but image is significantly over sharpened.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Richard - looks over sharpened on my screen also - a little halo around the underside of the beak.
Like the intense stare and the clear sharp eye.
TFS

[Richard Waas]

And I just had a discussion with Fabs about working your images late at night when you're tired. I resharpened after converting the image just before posting. Here's the original image done earlier in the day and converted this morning.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Richard, I like the repost. Seems like the oversharpening issue is resolved. Nice positioning of the subject along with the attention grabbing stare....

[Alfred Forns]

..... Richard .... drink your coffee and work on that image again :D

Looks better, might even lower the sharpening a little more (after the coffee) :) .. we did have one cooperative bird !!!

[Gail Spitler]

Hi Richard - Prefer the repost. I looked at the image for a while, read the other comments, and still had a feeling that there wasn't any drama, any tension holding the viewer. Thought about a crop and asked myself "what is this image about?". For me, it is about the stare and the alertness that is evident in the stare. So here is a possible crop. Just throwing this out as an alternative.
Cheers
Gail

[Richard Waas]

Gail, I love it.... Thanks for the suggestion.