Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

[Jason G. Harrison]

Captured this image when the male flew toward me over a very deep ditch on the edge of this field. Due to his location...my self critique wants more enviorment showing some of the grasses, etc...but he was too high up over the ditch for that. The foreground is the front edge of this ditch. Having said that, I did remove a dark weed that pulled my eye to it. Lastly, I wish there was some catchlights in the eyes...but it is what it is.

D300, 600VR, f/4, ISO 400, 1/4000th, -.3EV



Hope you enjoyed, and as always C&C are welcomed and encouraged.

Jason

[Fabs Forns]

Not an easy image to pull, very nice green surrounding the subject, which could have been placed higher in the frame. I may sharpen the face slightly more.
Thanks for sharing it.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Cool capture of the bird coming toward you and I like the setting. Adding to Fabs' comment, I might desaturate the BG a little bit and you could try to lighten the eyes some.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Very dynamic image!! The pose is very cool. I agree with the suggestions above, and I would be tempted to add a bit of green over the lightest grass below to make it match the rest (clone tool, soft brush at about 20-30% opacity should work well.)

[Randy Stout]

Jason:
Nicely captured, like the action, head on pose. Agree with Fabs about the birds placement, and was struck by the sharper area of background between wings. Daniel's suggestion would help that.

Cheers

Randy

[arash_hazeghi]

This is one tough shot to get, did very well and like the environment. Small point is that I see some noise/grain in the wings which might be a result of too much sharpening?

overall excellent image, TFS

[Danny J Brown]

I just found this one, Jason. What a powerful shot! I think this one is killer all the way.

DB

[Desmond Chan]

This is superb in my book !!! Some would think only a D3/D3s could have done it :)

Good advice given above. I may clean up the foreground a bit.

BTW, did you need to crop much?

[Doug Brown]

Pretty impressive image with good suggestions above.

[Jason G. Harrison]

Jason:
Nicely captured, like the action, head on pose. Agree with Fabs about the birds placement, and was struck by the sharper area of background between wings. Daniel's suggestion would help that.

Cheers

Randy

The bird was flying down a cut through the field. The parts of grass showing is a strip that was not cut, the rest was all cut around it and quite low. I could easily remove the "stuff" between the wings to make it match the rest of the bg...may indeed do that. Thanks.

Jason

[Jason G. Harrison]

This is superb in my book !!! Some would think only a D3/D3s could have done it :)

Good advice given above. I may clean up the foreground a bit.

BTW, did you need to crop much?

Thanks for the comments, this was a medium sized crop, off the sides and top.

[Markus Jais]

An awesome flight shot. This is very hard to get. Great colors, beautiful BG and perfect wing pose.

Markus

[Lorant Voros]

Amazing shot. Super cool. Agree with the suggestion how to get the best out of it, but the action and the pose make it a winner. Very well done.

Lorant

[Jonathan Ashton]

Amazing image I was blown away when I saw it in fact I didn't look for any imperfections, having seen the commenst I am sure you could make the image even better - congratulations an a really special image.

[Hendri Venter]

Now this is very good photography. Not easy at all but you nailed it. Well done and many congrats.

[Kiran Poonacha]

Its a beauty, loved that pose and the Bg works great...

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Hard one to nail for sure. These guys are deceptively difficult to capture in flight. loved the comp and agree with desaturating the BG a bit. Big-time WOW capture Jason.

[marco peschiera]

Wow ... this are the kind of image you don't forget for a long time...