Kestrel

Took this picture this morning in not great light. I have been trying to get a good shot of these delightfully small birds of prey for a long while. Normally they are off as soon as they see you getting to close, but this was taken from the car.

I am not sure about the branch in the corner but felt that I would keep it in and see what anyone thought about it in/out.

Canon 300 2.8 TC 1.4
some cropping
ISO 200
f/4.0
Manual exp
1/400

Regards

Dave

Dave,

There appears to be a halo around the bird this may be due to selective brightening?

T

Dave, the spare branches offer nothing to the comp as they are not connected, so they should go.

It's a nice capture with a cracking pose

Without the branches it's a nice comp for editorial (plenty of room for text on the right), but for a stand-alone image I might be tempted to go for a portrait crop.

With a different processing workflow you'll have a nice image here

I cannot see it on my screen but if anyone else can see it I will re upload

Dave

I went back to the image in photoshop and agree to much sharpening. How does this look

Regards

dave

The re-post is much better, I agree with Andy about the branch and to go with a portrait crop.

Dave,

Good sharp image, and nice pose. I agree about loosing the extra branches, and I think I'd go for a portrait crop as well.

Rob

i can see the halo in the first one, i don't think its a sharpening halo, as it's too wide.

second one a lot more natural, but could maybe do with an up in saturation?

Vertical crop, a bit warmer and you have a nice picture.
Eric