All 8.5 ft of it

[Arno Ellmer]

Another image from my May visit to Giant's Castle .

A Cape Vulture preparing to land ,displaying its impressive landing gear.
It weighs 8,5 kg (19 lbs ) and has a wing span of 2.55m ( 8.5 ft )
To appreciate this wing span take a tape measure and measure out the distance.
It is truly a privilege to view , admire and photograph these magnificent birds.

Canon Mk IV
500 mm
f/7.1
1/3200
ISO 800

[Robert Holguin]

Very nice shot. I love the landing pose, great background, very nice light, and great comp.
Well done.

[PhilCook]

Great pose, showing the majesty of this bird well, an awesome sight I'm sure. Not sure on the square frame though, the background to me looks a little over processed and swirly, but maybe that's just the way it was

[Dave Leroy]

For sure a majestic looking bird. Lovely incoming pose with lots of detail and very well exposed.
Good for you to feel privileged.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Excellent pose, light and bg, Arno. Giant's castle is high on my bucket list now :)
Would love to see this 1024 px wide.

[Doug Brown]

Sweet light and great pose. Not a big fan of the square crop. How much processing of the BG did you do? Another vote for seeing it 1024 pixels wide.

[Morkel Erasmus]

love the pose and the light on this magnificent bird Arno
I would also like to see it bigger
It looks as though you added some blur to the BG? If you did - why? IMHO the mountain BG at Giant's Castle is far enough away from these landing birds to ensure a nice smooth BG to begin with?
I might increase fine sharpening on the bird a tad...

[Arno Ellmer]

Sweet light and great pose. Not a big fan of the square crop. How much processing of the BG did you do? Another vote for seeing it 1024 pixels wide.

Thank you for the constructive comments, Doug , Phil and Morne .
I initially posted the incorrect jpeg image ( 720 x 587 ) . I should have posted the intended image (982 x 800 , did not have sufficient canvas to the left ,hence limit of V = 800 ).
Here is the original intended image.
Yes I am not a great fan of square crops either , so agree with you.
Regarding the bg , it is as shot , except I applied a Gaussian blur to the bg , after sharpening.In this case , and in hindsight it probably was not necessary.
I will post the frame prior to this one soon ,without touching the bg in any way. I will be interested to see your comments on this one.

[Arno Ellmer]

love the pose and the light on this magnificent bird Arno
I would also like to see it bigger
It looks as though you added some blur to the BG? If you did - why? IMHO the mountain BG at Giant's Castle is far enough away from these landing birds to ensure a nice smooth BG to begin with?
I might increase fine sharpening on the bird a tad...

Hi Morne,
Thanks for comments. See my response to your valid comments under Doug's 'reply with quote'

[Arno Ellmer]

Great pose, showing the majesty of this bird well, an awesome sight I'm sure. Not sure on the square frame though, the background to me looks a little over processed and swirly, but maybe that's just the way it was

Thanks for your valid comments ,Phil. See my response under Doug's 'reply with quote' .

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hi Morne,
Thanks for comments. See my response to your valid comments under Doug's 'reply with quote'

Thanks Arno.

Let's see what Morne says when he gets here though

Morkel