Grounded Red-tailed Hawk.

[Daniel Cadieux]

With the vole population seemingly on the high side this year the hawk made numerous attempts at catching one on the ground. This made for neat photography with the tall dry grasses making for a grasslands-type environment. The hawk would spend lots of time on the ground doing what looked like some playing with its catch: stomping, turning, extending its wings, hopping. Most of these were from a mostly hidden point-of-view within the grasses - here I was happy when it stood more erect in this clearer patch of the field!

Canon 7D + 100-400L @400mm, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/2000s., f/7.1, ISO 400, natural light, handheld, a few of the more distracting highlights in the BG tamed via burn tool and 25% clone tool. The far eye was almost completely invisible in the shade so that was worked on using dodge, sponge, and clone tools.

[Ronald Zigler]

Daniel, You did a great job on this image. The bird really stands out from the background. Your efforts were worth it.

[Jim Crosswell]

Nice image Daniel! I like the setting, feather details and eye contact. Good work on the far eye too.

[Sid Garige]

Dan,

Very complementing background and shallow DOF made it very interesting. Nice details and pose.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Dan, I like the enviromental feel to this, good earthy browns all round. Good eye contact from the hawk, and I like what you did to the far eye.

[James Salywoda]

Great Shot!!! I like the composition captured and your processing on this is outstanding.

[Chris Kotze]

Excellent captured in its environment, great light and colours

[gail bisson]

This is a really nice shot. I like the bird's pose and the colors in the BG. Great PP work. What does the sponge tool do? I have never used it.
Gail

[Daniel Cadieux]

This is a really nice shot. I like the bird's pose and the colors in the BG. Great PP work. What does the sponge tool do? I have never used it.
Gail

Thanks everyone!! The sponge tool is located with the burn and dodge tools works just like them, except its job is to saturate or desaturate. One of my very favorite tools in PS. In this image, when I lightened the far eye it was rather hazy and whitish so I burned the pupil and sponged the iris.

[Randy Stout]

Daniel:

Very good environmental image, with good techs, and a subtle but effective job on the eye.

My only additional observation would be the slight 'coarseness' of the bokeh of the OOF background. Obviously a very subjective thing. Did you get any of this scene with different f/stops? Might be interesting to see how the bokeh varied.

Cheers

Randy