Kestrel

Some days the weather seems to be against finding subjects but although the wind was gusting up on Beachy Head this morning I encountered an obliging female Kestrel. Now I have even more crop questions where and how to apply proportions etc.

1D3 800mm f/8.0 1/125 sec tripod windy blustery conditions. RAW to LR then resized in PS4 to post Cropped in LR from original.

Critique Advice Comments most welcome.

Thanks for looking

This is the original shot.

It's a beautiful and dramatic composition. I like it very much, not nits at all except perhaps the crop a little lower to have a little more branch.The background colours are really beautiful.

Some where in your processing Barry you have introduced some background lines.
The subject and pose are great but I have to say I would never dream of cropping to this extent as my images seem to look crap after doing so. Thats only me though Barry.

Major

Perhaps a portrait crop working with Kim's idea of a tad more branch. Not bad quality for such a crop !

Drew

Thanks for the comments it is appreciated.
Major I'm not sure I'm seeing the background lines that you refer to could be my monitor settings. I've tried another crop on your suggestions Kim does this work better?

I always tend to try and obtain as much fine detail of the subject maybe I'm over doing that aspect.

Nice pose, but way too much of a crop here Barry, you can get away with a crop of this extent if the subject is graphic (Miguel Lasa's backlit polar bear), but, when there is fine detail it just will never work, a little from the top of the original and a bit from the left to where the branches enter the frame would do it for me, plus tone down the highlight to the right of the bird....

HTH

Lovely image and love the composition on all but the last just has it for me,well done

Barry looked this evening on my home PC and all looks well. Must be my crap monitor at work.

Major.

Lovely shot, really lovely colours. It does look a little dark on my screen, but no-one else has mentioned it, so it could just be my screen! Instead of cropping so close, I think I would only crop the original slightly, to give more of an impression of the conditions - windy, desolate kinda feel.