Resting Cooper's

Gallery: AvianPosted November 3, 201571 views4 comments

The Cooper's Hawk's (Accipiter cooperii) ability to adapt to urban living is one of the reasons for an increase in their numbers. They can quickly accelerate to flying speeds of 60 mph, through cluttered backyards and open streets, through sunny areas and deep shadows, making quick course changes while often no more than a few feet off the ground. They challenge the camera's focal and light sensors and the photographer's ability to track while looking through a viewfinder behind a telephoto lens.

Fortunately,they rest for long periods of time. The image above was taken with a Canon T-3, at 1/1025, f10,at 320 ISO with a 300 mm lens. I flipped the side dimensions for a portrait format and in the process did a slight crop.

Comments

4 comments

Comment posted by David Bogener on November 4, 2015 at 2:23 PM

Nice pose you captured here. A little tight on the bottom. Perhaps consider moving the bird a little further to the left in the frame to give him a little space to look into if you have the space. If you are not adverse to cloning, consider cloning out the branches (right, bottom, top) not touching the hawk.

Registered on October 30, 2013, 417 Posts, 1255 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on November 4, 2015 at 7:03 PM

Your best thus far, Larry. Nice pose and head turn and the view of the bird is pretty much uinobscured with excellent exposure and detail in the plumage. A touch more room on the bottom would have been nice and if you can ever catch it lower down to decrease the steepness of the shot, it will make an even better composition. The sky seems oversaturated, but I notice you used a different camera for this. Is this an older shot? Did you use one of the automatic settings on the camera and record it as a JPG file? Camera settings can really mess with saturation sometimes, which is one of many reasons why most of us save our images in RAW format on the camera and convert later.

devil

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on November 4, 2015 at 8:52 PM

Welcome to NPN Larry, nice head turn and sharpness. If you have a little more room at the bottom I would include it. I am looking forward to seeing more posts and your comments on other photographers images. devil

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by Keith Bauer on November 4, 2015 at 9:43 PM

Hi Larry:

I think this is the strongest of the images you've posted so far. As noted in other comments, more room at the bottom would be for the composition. The tail is too tight at the edge of the frame.

The blue sky looks oversaturated and there are halos around the bird most noticeable on the right side indicating the sky was darkened in post processing (most likely scenario).

Registered on November 20, 2003, 458 Posts, 4836 Comments