White-tailed Kite landing

[Dan Brown]

Well, this image is from the past, reworked with all my mite and new tools! Cropped about 50%, converted in Capture NX2, PP'ed in CS5 using smart objects, brightened and saturated the eye a bit, reduced noise selectively with Noiseware Pro, sharpened selectively with Topaz Infocus and USM, Cloned out a few twigs at the bottom edge and "puppet warped" the branch near the birds right wing so it wasn't touching. I guess that I could have removed a bunch of twigs on the right edge, but, they are what they are. C&C welcome and taken with a spoonful of sugar!


Camera Model: NIKON D300, handheld from car window
Shutter speed: 1/2000 sec
Aperture: 5.6
Exposure mode: Manual
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Multi-segment
ISO: 400
Lens: 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6
Focal length: 400mm
Focal length: 600mm (in 35mm film)
VR Image Stabilization: On
AF mode: AF-C

[Daniel Bailey]

Love the light on the bird, very warm feel! Nice work on the eye.

[Grace Scalzo]

Dan, this is beautiful. Love the twigs, glad you left them. The light is pretty as is the landing pose. I even like the square crop. Thanks for sharing your processing techniques...I have to read up on Puppet warping.

[Bill Dix]

Great capture. Nice wing position, head angle, spread tail. Good PP work.

[Ron Sprunger]

Great job with this one. Love the pose, IQ, and perch. Guess I'd like to see a horizontal crop with a pretty good lop off the bottom. While the tree is attractive and in good focus, it feels heavy to me, and leads the eye away from the bird.

[Doug Brown]

One of your better image posts Dan! Love that red eye, wing position, and fanned tail feathers. Thanks for sharing your processing technique!

[denise ippolito]

Beautiful Dan, I like the pose, the subject and the sharpness.

[Arthur Morris]

Spectacular bird, pose, light, and optimization. If it were mine I would clean up the lrc in an instant.

[Don Lacy]

Very well done a lot of work but it paid off.

[dankearl]

I wouldn't change thing. I like the comp, the eye is killer and the wing position is really good.
At first I thought a horizontal crop would look better, but the more I looked, I think the more vertical
crop is the way to go.

[arash_hazeghi]

I love the pose and details, such a tough to photograph bird. When I first saw the image my reaction was the eye looks it has been saturated. I think it would resemble the actual kite better if you bring down the saturation a bit

[Mital Patel]

Dan,

This is lovely wing show here. HA with that tiny catchlight is awesome and the perch makes it more beautiful.
However i am not much crazy of square crop and adding more of perch doesnt work for me.

If this was mine i might crop horizontal leaving main perch as is and the just those four stems of 2nd front perch visible in frame.
Say crop from bottom about an inch and half and some from top when horizontal

[Dan Brown]

I love the pose and details, such a tough to photograph bird. When I first saw the image my reaction was the eye looks it has been saturated. I think it would resemble the actual kite better if you bring down the saturation a bit

Thanks, Arash. I was very careful with the eye, as I know what you are saying, and added just a tiny bit of sat. As I toggled back and forth with the sat layer, I could barely see a difference! I will double check this! But I was thinking that the eye was really red also, before processing. He/she was part of a pair that were in the middle of nest building and breeding (often, so amped up on hormones?) so maybe this coupled with the sun being low in the sky and the eye nearly parallel to the camera sensor explains the red eye?

[Dan Brown]

Dan,

This is lovely wing show here. HA with that tiny catchlight is awesome and the perch makes it more beautiful.
However i am not much crazy of square crop and adding more of perch doesnt work for me.

If this was mine i might crop horizontal leaving main perch as is and the just those four stems of 2nd front perch visible in frame.
Say crop from bottom about an inch and half and some from top when horizontal

Thanks, Mital. I really struggled with the crop! I originally tried a horizontal with and without the lower branches but it seemed that the bird alway ended up centered too much! I will play with your suggestion!

[Jim Crosswell]

Great image Dan! I like the wing position, head angle, red eye and sharpness.