Nature Photographers Network
This is the preserved archive of the original Nature Photographers Network. The community continues at naturephotographers.network.
Red-tailed Hawk
‹ PreviousWeekly Challenge GalleryNext ›

Red-tailed Hawk

by Dennis Plank

Gallery: Weekly ChallengePosted September 24, 2017182 views4 comments
I think this is the third time I've posted this image-twice in the Avian forum trying to get some kind of separation between the hawk and the cottonwood in the background.  This time I added a brightness/contrast layer to the bg and lowered the contrast, then boosted the brightness and played with a curve layer on the hawk.

7Dii, 500 mm f/4 ISL + 1.4 TC, hand held from car, f/5.6, 1/1600, iso 800, aperture priority, center-weighted average metering.  First processed lin CS6 and LR5.  The latest reprocessing was done in LR & PS CC half an hour ago.  Cropped from a horizontal original to 8.8 MP before resizing for the web.

Your comments and critiques are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Comments

4 comments
Comment posted by Rob Graham on September 24, 2017 at 11:04 PM
great action and pose. I think you have some good separation between the hawk and trees. Looking at the large image, I think I see some noise in the dark ends of the wings, but I don't know if it is significant or not.
Registered on August 22, 2006, 842 Posts, 2824 Comments
Comment posted by Paul Breitkreuz on September 24, 2017 at 11:29 PM
I like it a lot, Dennis. Fits the theme nicely. This is the first I've seen of the image so I'll just say the processing looks good to me as a finished product......laugh
Registered on February 25, 2006, 525 Posts, 8448 Comments
Comment posted by David Schoen on September 25, 2017 at 4:40 PM
Yes this would get slammed in the avian category as being too busy but it works well here and actually the hawk stands out quite well amongst all the clutter of branches especially in the larger image.   It's amazing the hawk didn't get caught.
Registered on November 6, 2006, 1213 Posts, 4587 Comments
Comment posted by Mark Seaver on September 25, 2017 at 8:15 PM
Dennis, the hawk shows nicely against the bushy background.  The color differences between the hawk and branches help it to stand out.  This looks like a fairly typical red tailed habitat.
Registered on January 23, 2011, 1103 Posts, 17270 Comments