The Grassland Hulk

[Kiran Poonacha]

was lucky to find this huge Steppe Eagle Perched at this level. This was at great rann of Kutch. would have loved to move a little more to the birds right. but could not.

Spec: 1/800, ISO 400, F 7.1

Canon 40D + 500mm + 1.4TC

[subhrashis]

The title certainly fits the bird, dada! Awesome eye detail and contact, bkgr, sharpness.
If I really work hard to find a point to criticize, it will be the central placement... Could you try out alternative crops adding canvass if needed?

[Stu Bowie]

Kiranbhai, you seem to have so many sightings of great raptors, and this one is no diferent. I agree moving to your right would have been good, but still like the pose. Good light and detail, and nice and sharp too. Killer BG. In situations like this, I first get the shot, and then try and move for a better angle - if they fly, they fly. If they dont, I get a better shot.

[Ricardo Rodriguez]

Hi Kiran, what a majestic-looking bird. Tack-sharp and fine plumage detail. The central placement doesn't bother me a bit, but the thin branch at left does (personal thing, no biggie). Gorgeous three-tiered BG bokeh.

[John Chardine]

Beautiful image, BG, sharpness, pose and head angle. I agree with the need to modify the crop if possible. You have this big, impressive bird looking out over the landscape and it begs for more room on the left (and a little more on top too).

[Axel Hildebrandt]

This pose shows the powerful talons really well. I also like the eye contact, angle and BG. Since the BG is so uniform, adding canvas on the left would be very easy to do. Let me know if you are interested in knowing how to, in case you haven't done this before.

[denise ippolito]

Kiran, This is one of my favorites of yours. The gradient soft BG and the perch add so much interest to this. Very nice sharp details and killer pose. I agree w crop suggestions. :)

[Ilija Dukovski]

Great bird and great work with that light, the BG is marvelous.
Love it (as always :))Agree with Axel about adding canvas on left.

[DanWalters]

Really like the way the bird is perched in the tree. Nice tones in the background as well.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

What a majestic bird!
Love the two toned background too. I especially love the dof, and how the entire perch is sharp. Agree that a little more canvas to the left with make this awesome pic even stronger.
One minor suggestion, the teeny tiny bit of perch about an inch and a half left of the main one at the bottom could be cloned out?

[arash_hazeghi]

excellent pose and details Kiran.

[Kiran Poonacha]

Thank you dear fellow bird lovers for your support and encouragement. Your suggestions and comments are greatly helping me in moving forward with my passion "bird photography".

@ Axel Bhai, thanks to you guys I have learnt a few PS tricks here at BPN.

As suggested I have added some space on the left, a bit on the top also cloned out the small twig near the birds foot.

Thank you all once again for the support.

Regards,

Kiran.

[Chris van Rooyen]

I really enjoy your raptors Kiran. To get this species at this level with this light is exceptional. Posture is outstanding, as are all the technicals.

[Arthur Morris]

Majestic pose and bird with a great repost. You are as good as anyone when it comes to evening out the tonalities of the bird in less than ideal light. May we see a JPEG that represents the original capture bhai?

[Jim Crosswell]

Beautiful image Kiran! The repost is an improvement of an already great image.

[Markus Jais]

Wonderful shot with great HA, details, sharpness and BG. Awesome bird.

Markus

[Kiran Poonacha]

@ Guruji: thank you for the encouragement, Really value them. I have posted the Jpeg original.

Thank you so much Chris, Jim and Markus Bhai...

Regards,

Kiran

[Arthur Morris]

Kiran-bhai, Thanks for confirming my suspicions: you are a Photoshop master. You did some wonderful work with the color, the brightness, and the shadowed breast. And a great job of smoothing the BKGR.

And, YAW. :)

[Kiran Poonacha]

All your blessing guru, BPN has been a great Teacher....

[Don Hamilton Jr.]

Bhai, here's a thought, since some of us, do not know, what we do not know..:confused: if you follow.:) It would be very cool to walk us thru the process of what you did, even if it's a one liner per step. This is an amazing job! Super workflow/post processing!:D
Thks for your consideration.
Don

[Kiran Poonacha]

Don Bhai, Thank you for your kind words of appreciation... I dont have a fixed workflow bhai.

I have listed what I could remember I did for this image.

1. Raw open using camera raw 4.6 in PS, sharpness set to 100 and exposure to +0.20 everything else default.

2. set shadow at 19 and increased brightness.

3. set levels ( dont know exact values)

4. saved the file, then open it in neat image and removed noise ( used "remove all noise" setting as it would make the BG creamy). saved the file in different name.

5. pasted the filtered file on top of the original file in PS earsed out the bird and perch.

6. reduced brightness of the filtered layer. to make the bird pop a bit,

7. then selected the background layer, selected the dark areas in the birds and adjusted the whites the make it brighter. used burn tool set at 15 and rubbed carefully on the non dark areas of the plumage as they were a bit bright.

8. merge the layers once again set the curves and brightness.

They may be simpler ways to do this, but this is my trial and error process.

hope this is ok bhai :D

[Trivedi Vatsal]

Amazing image as always sirji!! I've learned a lot from all above discussions. This forum has taught me a lot & I'm still learning from you all Gurus!! Thanks a lot for sharing!! :)

[Juan Aragonés]

Excelent photoshop job here Kiran but, of course, this image is not only a good example of a perfect processing job but a good example of how an excelent image can be improved without looking unnatural. Your bird of prey images are really inspiring to me and I always look to see more of them. Excelent technicals, eye contact, sharpness, BG... very well done :)