Flying Falcon with Prey

[Christian Neumann]

My first posting in this section. I spent the whole Saturday photographing Eurasian kestrels at the abandoned Tempelhof airfield in the center of Berlin. Kestrels there tolerate humans and it is not very challenging to photograph them perched. An image of a kestrel in flight with prey was what was on my mind and this one is pretty close to what I wanted. I put the camera on Tv mode and selected 1/1250 sec (+ 1 stop), ISO was set on AUTO. I selected the central AF field only.
Post-processing with Lightroom 3. All comments welcome.

EOS 7D
EF 400 mm f/5.6 L USM
1/1250 sec
f/5.6
ISO 400
+ 1 stop
handheld






http://www.tornadoropa.eu

[Don Lacy]

Hi Christian and welcome to the Avian forum. A couple of suggestions first would be that you join as a member so you can use BPNs server to host your images so the site will generate a thumbnail most people will just pass by your thread if they do not see a thumbnail. Your Kestrel is nice and sharp but way to tight in the frame the subject needs more space to fly into and the prey feels like its about to fall out of the frame.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Welcome to "Avian" Christian!! Sounds like you have a great place to photograph kestrals. Your image is plenty sharp, and the techs look good, but the subject is much too tight in the frame. Adding room all around, but especially more in front for the kestral to fly into, would give your image much needed breathing room and a more pleasing "free" feel to the comp. Having the wings up higher would have been great too...do have some frames like that? Great to have the prey too, complete with open eye AND a catchlight to give it a bit of life during its' last moments...

[Marina Scarr]

Welcome to the Avian forum and thank you for posting. It looks as though the Kestral's prey is still alive in this capture! Your kestrel's head is nice and sharp and you have captured some great action/behavior here. I wonder if you cropped this picture or whether you have more room i your original. It is a bit too tight in the frame in my opinion, and I think would be more appealing if there were some more room all arounod your subject.

[Christian Neumann]

Thank you all for your comments! I completely agree with all of you, the crop was much to tight.
Here is another version. Do you like it better?






http://www.tornadoropa.eu

[Ofer Levy]

Hi Christian, awesome action and behaviour captured! Looks sharp with excellent detail!
Here is a repost with what looks to me a more balanced composition. I have also brightened up the shadow under the wing. Lastly - saved as sRGB for web as it wasn't embeded in your original post.

[Christian Neumann]

Ofer, now it's perfect. thank you very much!
I wonder how you managed to add canvas to the lower part of the image. Can you tell me how you did that?
Much appreciated, Christian

[Ofer Levy]

Hi Christian, I am pleased you like it.
To add canvas I simply use the crop tool to create the frame I want then use the clone tool to clone the blue into the new canvas. I am sure there are better ways to do it but this is what I have done...

[Christian Neumann]

Ofer: it's so easy! thank you for the tip! Cheers, Christian