This Rough-legged was photographed along the causeway to Antelope Island State Park, Utah during one of the notorious inversions that frequent the valleys of the greater Salt Lake City area during the winter. Best reason of all to live up in the mountains. The white background is a combination of the frozen fresh water side of the causeway fading into the fog of the inversion seamlessly. The brightness of the sun coming through the fog was bright enough to render a hint of a shadow beneath the Hawk giving it just a little sense of space. Any thoughts?
Thanks for looking and any comments you may care to share.
Canon 50D, Canon 400 2.8 w/1.4 ext.. ISO 200, 1/2000 @ f6.3 PP LR4 cropped for composition.
Comments
15 commentsThis is a very unique look. The high key background is very interesting, especially with the shadow under the hawk. Detail looks OK, but looks like a pretty large crop as critical feather detail is diminished. As is, it creates a painterly look which is certainly not a bad thing.
Good flight pose. The crop has degraded this somewhat.
It is a pretty extreme crop, Keith.
The amount of fog between the lens and subject softened all the details, but the affect was appealing to me. The way the light envelops the hawk with an almost omnidirectional feel I found very interesting for a BIF.
A really cool image, Neil. I like the bit of shadow under the bird-it provides a lot of context to the image. There seems to be an awful lot of noise in the bird for iso 200-did you have to bring it up a lot in PP?
Dennis:
The 50D was not the best for this type of work. The 5Dii or the 7Dii that I now work with would have handled this much better. The exposure was brought up a little in post, but the fog and crop probably have more to do with it than any other factor.
Phil:
I would say more than somewhat. As keith observed, the painterly look was what I found appealing in this otherwise discardable image. I guess I'm stubborn that way.
Here is the original
The extreme crop has effected the IQ as others have discussed. It does have a certain feel to it Neil that I like a lot. The shadow adds a lot IMO. Well done.
Its a nice image. I like the feel. I can put myself behind your viewfinder and feel myself snap the shutter. What more can you ask? For me as a photographer with a liberal range of acceptance, I am happy with what I see as you have described the situation.
From a non-avian photographer, this is just terrific, Neil. Love the comp, wing position, high-key bg, and painterly look. Outstanding.
Neil:
Thanks for sharing the uncropped image. It does help explain the result. I still VERY much like the result. I could well imagine this printed on a nice cotton fibre paper and hung on a wall. Nicely done.
Too
Man !
Considering the crop, very good. The high key combined with the slight shadow makes you do a double-take. Really interesting effect. Despite the loss of detail from the crop, this is a very fine image.
The weather made for a very nice effect. Almost studio-like. Agree with Keith in the lack of detail, if possible I would give the bird more room, placing in smaller in this vast landscape.. I like this kind of shots ! Cheers, Hans
Awesome pose and the crop for comp worked well here. The loss in image quality is expected for that much of a crop, but the result makes it worth doing
......................Jim
this is super--I love the shadow--it adds a great deal of context. I agree very much with Hans that a very loose comp is the way to go with this. It would be easy to add canvas anywhere in front of the bird. By taking some off the back (left) end and adding on the right, you could keep the overall size in the frame (of the original) and recompose.
So many crop choices here. I lilke the blank canvas of the original and a small crop to get him off center would do the trick. I think a pano crop would also work well. Either would eliminate some of the noise problem. I have both a 40D and 7D, both of which give me many problems with the noise on an otherwise beauty of a capture. Frustrating to say the least.