Red Tailed Hawk

[Joel Eade]

One of my few attempts at BIF: Taken hand held from my truck window.....I was on an exit ramp and saw the bird in the grass next to the shoulder, I pulled over and took a few shots before it flew and then this one as it crossed over the road below me.

40D
300mm 2.8L
1/1600
iso 250
f/4.5
manual mode

Processed with ACR and CS4.
I removed some distracting lines from the background, also replaced the eye from another frame because this one was too dark and I couldn't get any detail.

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the nice top view and bank pose, eye looks a bit unnatural though, the tail looks a bit orange on my screen also looks like the white areas of rump were slightly overexposed and they have turned grey after recovery.

appealing shot TFS

[Jackie Schuknecht]

The pose is great Joel. If the eye looked too dark, all you would have to do is select it. Copy on a new layer and lighten it using curves on that same layer. Erase the bits that look funny. Nice and sharp, hard to get good flight shots and I think you did a very good job.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Joel - doing well - Agree with Arash's comments - eye needs a bit of work.
Might be some info in the educational resources forum.
Keep em comin g:)

[Dave Mills]

Hi Joel, good comments above. I noticed there is a halo around the birds head.

[Mark Young]

Very nice to see a raptor at this angle showing the details above for a change.