Red-tailed hawk

[Peter Farrell]

I spooked this hawk from the ground to this perch while walking one of my usual trails. He was kind enough to give me a look back and pose for a few. I was only about 30' (10m) away. Overcast afternoon, under tree canopy. Sony A700, 70-400G @330mm, f5.6, 1/250, iso1000, ev-1.0, HH propped against a tree. Cropped to portrait, cropped a little off the top, cloned out a branch in front of bird, blurred BG, nr on BG, levels, increase contrast and sharpen bird and perch. Burned some light spots on the perch.

[Robert Amoruso]

Peter,

Good sharpness on the eye and relatively sharp to the tail tip - that's good. I can see some cloning artifacts (near left leg and at top right of branch). Since you took out another branch, I say get rid of the one still there.

I also suggest bumping up the contrast some on the bird.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Peter

Looks good, like the pose and look back !! Looks like the sharpest point in on the birds shoulder/back .. would suggest focusing on the eye and recomposing. Overall is a bit flat, can raise contrast using the pre-sets in curves !!! Simple and works great !!

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Peter, like the composition and eye contact. Would also get rid of the branch. Just IMO.
Congrats

[Lance Peters]

Hi Peter - doing well - ahh the branch :)
Hmm depends on your own personal ethics and what you want to use the shot for.

Bit more contrast to the bird for my tastes.
Like the look back pose.
Keep em coming.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Did really well on this one! Needs more contrast, as noted. If you are pretty close, you will usually need to bump up the DOF, F-8 usually pretty good. I think at F5.6 you did well nonetheless. Did you push the exposure (expose to the right)? Good work. regards~Bill

[Dave Mills]

Hi Peter, I was also surprised that you got as much DOF at F5.6. Nicely muted backround, even lighting with nice head turn. The image would look cleaner without the branch but it certainly isn't an image killer. Tweaking the contrast should help the image!

[arash_hazeghi]

nice look back and BG, image is noisy and can use some NR.

[Neil Nourse]

Hi Peter,

Nice catch to get one of these at 30 feet!!!
My personal taste would be to remove the last branch. I am also seeing quite a bit of noise.

[Peter Farrell]

Thanks everyone for the comments. For this repost I cloned out the branch, used a surface blur on the BG, a little more NR on the BG and boosted contrast on the bird in curves. Do you see noise in the Bird?

[Dave Mills]

Hi Peter,good repost.The backround appears smoothed out and I see little noise on the bird.

[Gail Spitler]

Hi Peter
In addition to the other suggestions, I felt that the bg was just too bright, too saturated so that the bird had trouble standing out. I took your re-post and desaturated the bg. For me, it seemed to help but it is probably personal choice.
I like the bird's position very much. Great situation to happen upon during your walk.
Cheers
Gail

[Bill Jobes]

Hi Peter,

You've done a beautiful capture of one of one of my favorites -- the red-tailed hawk.

The location is most challenging. In the woods with a complex foliage background.

What I've attempted to do here is agree with and follow the earlier suggestions on cloning and sharpness, while retaining the hawk's natural color as much as possible. Your repost seems, to my eye, to impose a red cast on the feathers.

So here is my interpretation of your fine image. It includes an attempt at cloning to produce a credible OOF background, a slight USM boost on the entire image, and adding some texture to the feathers.

I tried to correct some of the noise imposed by my interventions by reducing noise overall.

Cloning branches in complex green backgrounds is one of my greatest challenges. You and others will have to say whether I retained the natural OOF look.

TFS, and enduring the gentle critiques.

[Peter Farrell]

Thanks Gail and Bill for the re-posts and comments. I actually do not like the way the bird looks in my re-post. I boosted the contrast as suggested and was hoping to get feed back on that. But I much prefer my OP. Also the branch in the OP didn't bother me that much. Bill, as I am sure you know, there are light, intermediate and dark versions of this Hawk. Most of the ones i see around here tend to favor the intermediate coloring and actually have more of a reddish brown than your re-post. The actual color was propably between your post and my original post.
Peter