Not an over the top photo but it's the best I have of an endangered raptor that's hard to find much less photograph.
It's about 5 years ago when I was just getting into this so I was using a canon rebel and a 1-400 mm.
This was at 5.6, 1/320 sec, ISO 200.
It's cropped about 50%, and I used viveza and color efex in Nik for recent processing.
Comments are always appreciated as it's how I get better, thanks for looking.
Lovely pose on this guy. You must have been overjoyed to have the opportunity to photograph it. The blue sky is amazing against this bird and all the colors work well together. I imagine you are opposed to removing distracting elements. So am I in many cases. However, if you are not going to enter this into any contests, I would consider removing the 2 vertical "trees" in the BG b/c they truly do distract from this amazing raptor.
Marina expressed my thoughts exactly! Also be careful with sharpening halos such as the one running along the falcon's far outer edge. Five years ago so a belated congrats on the sighting!
Thanks for all the nice comments. I don't have a problem removing the thin vertical agave stalks Marina, good suggestion. I'd be a bit of a hypocrite as I did clone out a band as this was one of the original released falcons by the Peregrine Fund (fantastic organization) on Ted Turner's Armendaris Ranch in New Mexico. I was doing some work there and heard they show up occasionally at the release site so hung out there one afternoon and got lucky.
I didn't see the halo Daniel, but I've learned to trust your sharp eye and will check at home on my larger monitor. I just used the raw presharpener in Nik but I might need to tone it down.
I'll try the crop Morkel but I doubt it will work, these guys are really small, kestral sized, so it's tough to get a tight shot.