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Male Peregrine Falcon
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Male Peregrine Falcon

by Patrick O'Healy

Gallery: AvianPosted February 22, 2015200 views13 comments
February 21, 2014 While shooting with three other NPN members, Charlie Van Tassel, Nate Chappell and Tjie Poo this male Peregrine Falcon was with a female along the cliffs north of La Jolla Cove. We were fortunate that he posed for a good while very close to the path. After reducing my tripod and ducking under the chain I sat on the ground and snapped away without the intervening branches above. All four of us fairly obstructed the path while we took our shots. Unfortunately when he took off, he flew toward us and it was impossible to keep him in the frame.

Nikon D4 Nikkor 600mm ISO250 1/2000 f/8 White Balance Auto RAW Manual Tripod, Wimberley Gimbal

Processed in Lightroom, PhotoshopCC2014, and NIK

Thank you for your comments and observations. :toast:

Comments

13 comments
Comment posted by keith mitchell on February 22, 2015 at 1:56 PM
Patrick the large image is well worth the view, incredible detail, bet prey does not stand a chance when held in those powerful talons, great capture of this magnificent bird.

Keith.
Registered on July 12, 2008, 127 Posts, 1735 Comments
Comment posted by Charles Gangas on February 22, 2015 at 2:18 PM
Terrific detail and a great pose Patrick. Wonderful you were able to get so close. :toast:
Registered on August 12, 2009, 544 Posts, 2414 Comments
Comment posted by Jerry Austin on February 22, 2015 at 2:57 PM
Great capture Patrick. The large image is indeed wonderful. No nits from me.
Registered on January 6, 2012, 651 Posts, 3448 Comments
Comment posted by Alberto Patiño on February 22, 2015 at 4:42 PM
Spectacular detail, Patrick, and the dude was really showing off! :toast:
Registered on December 2, 2014, 278 Posts, 1736 Comments
Comment posted by Keith Bauer on February 22, 2015 at 6:21 PM
Looks you guys had a great afternoon. Good work getting stuff out of the way to shoot.
My very first thought was a cyan cast to the image. Sure enough when looking at details in PS, there was. Here's a color corrected version (also changed overall luminance) to remove that cast, a bit of selective dodging/burning, and a bit of sharpening on the breast. See what you think. A very nice image.
Registered on November 20, 2003, 458 Posts, 4836 Comments
Comment posted by Philip Hodgkins on February 22, 2015 at 8:14 PM
Beautiful, beautiful bird! Looks like Keith caught the color cast in the bird, but there is also splotches of blue in the perch. I don't know if this was natural or cast, but I do think desaturating the blue on the perch would be an improvement. :smile:
Registered on July 24, 2006, 2741 Posts, 12349 Comments
Comment posted by Luke Ormand on February 22, 2015 at 8:32 PM
Excellent details and nice clean blue background. The image looks a hint flat - I would play with the levels a bit and maybe make a slight adjustment to the white balance.

Update - just saw the corrections Keith made which addresses my concerns with the processing.
Registered on February 4, 2009, 1093 Posts, 7035 Comments
Comment posted by Nate Chappell on February 22, 2015 at 11:33 PM
Wonderful eye contact and details here Patrick, I like that raised foot and nice techs as well. It was great to meet you. :toast:
Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments
Comment posted by Steve Thompson on February 23, 2015 at 3:41 PM
Outstanding Patrick! It is amazing how Keith's edits brightened the image up. Great sky, perch and the details in the falcon are very sharp. Well done! :toast:
Registered on August 7, 2014, 125 Posts, 2319 Comments
Comment posted by Jim Zablotny on February 23, 2015 at 10:34 PM
Patrick,

This photo reminds me of a Fuertes watercolor. I especially like the feather texture and delicate shadows that you captured :toast: ..............Jim
Registered on January 17, 2004, 705 Posts, 3594 Comments
Comment posted by Charlie VanTassel on February 23, 2015 at 11:48 PM
Nice work, Patrick. Looks like we were all able to get a few keepers, even though the day was questionable weatherwise. Good to see you guys again. :toast: :toast:
Registered on October 18, 2006, 644 Posts, 4801 Comments
Comment posted by Kurt Bowman on February 25, 2015 at 9:08 PM
Nice work getting yourself into a good position on this one Patrick. nits already mentored and the repost removing the color cast makes a nice improvement. Good work! :toast:
Registered on June 19, 2008, 1005 Posts, 8028 Comments
Comment posted by Rob Drummond on March 3, 2015 at 6:22 AM
Superb detail and eye contact Patrick - ditto about playing with the brightness and levels
Registered on November 8, 2003, 617 Posts, 8267 Comments