Black kite

[Richard Stern]

I recently spent a great week in Extremedura, Spain. Black kites were common. This one was flying around over a roadside rest stop, in clear blue sky, harsh light.

D7000, 300 f/4-AF-S + Kenko 1.4TC, hand-held. 1/1250, f6.3, ISO 280, pattern metering.

Moderate crop, sharpening and noise reduction applied in Lightroom. Slight dodging applied to underwings.

I often wonder if people feel that images of birds with a very plain bg, and no context to add to their environment, are rather boring. Any comments on this, and of course other image critiques, are welcome.

Richard

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Richard, first things first - the parts of the bird that have light on it are nicely rendered with good details and exposure. What detracts from the image is the wing position and the resulting shadows. Much better to get the wings either fully up or fully down. Would love to see this one with the wings extended above! The bonus in that case would be that the body would also be fully lit by the sun.

As for the plain backgrounds, I personally prefer to see some clouds and I often use a cloud brush in PS to add just a touch. If the image is going to be in a field guide or reference collection, then the plain blue sky is fine, but I think most photo editors and purchasers of prints prefer a little more interest.

[gail bisson]

Hi from Sydney NS Richard! I agree 100% with Kerry. Personally, I get tired of birds flying against blue/grey/white sky. I love a picture that has a clean BG to highlight the bird but still has some environment included. I also like images where the bird is doing something ie. carrying a twig or food or interacting with another animal.
Were you shooting on continuous hi speed to get the wings up?
Gail

[Richard Stern]

Hi Gail,

Greetings from The Valley! I posted this partly for general critique, as usual in this forum, but more particularly to get peoples' opinions on just that - a bird against a plain sky or background with no other point of interest. I also made that point in a recent thread about a Prairie warbler in this forum.

As I generally do with birds in flight, I did indeed use continuous high speed shooting. I think part of the problem with this shot was the harsh lighting from above and behind to the right. Thanks for the comments.

Richard

[Diego Torrentes]

Hi Richard. I like wings position and contact eye. Unfortunalley, as you pointed, light was too harsh an difference between the parts of the bird lighted and into shadows is too great and when you to fix that, via Photoshop, the general contrast on the bird's plumage became ugly. It could be a better shot y the light were less harsh. Looking forward to seeing more.