Osprey (fishhawk) on the CT River. They usually carry the fish head forward for the most efficient flying , and this one apparently couldn’t resist a snack before returning to the nest.
All comments and suggestions are welcome and thanks for viewing.
Is this a composite: No
Sony RX10M4, HH from kayak, ISO 125, f/6.3, 1/640, 390mm (35mm equiv). Exposure, contrast, and sharpness all adjusted in post, and cropped to reduce amount of sky on the left.
Hi Jim
The Osprey will be coming back to the CT River in around 30 days. The Osprey is a little soft and I think it comes form motion blur. 1/640 at 390 mm is good for slow moving birds, but for this action I think you would be better served with a fast shutter speed. ( 1/1800). It is always fun to see Ospreys bring home dinner.
Peter
I am challenged enough with hand holding while standing still and panning a bird in flight…trying from a kayak seems a very interesting challenge, but I certainly understand the feeling of trying to get the shot. It is always nice to see these birds of prey returning from a successful hunt. There is some ghosting or aberration visible along the wings and for me even with your crop there is too much blue sky along the left side creating unbalance image.
Peter and Stephen provided some good guidance for improving the shot the next time that you see the osprey overhead. The bird is soft and is also over-exposed based upon the loss of detail in the areas that are being hit by direct sun. Haloing in this type of image is very common and is easy to fix. Using the rubber stamp tool on a new layer with the settings changed from normal to darken is an effective method of reducing haloing. Select the sky color around the edge of the wing with the rubber stamp tool and click on the haloed areas with the rubber stamp tool…Jim
@Stephen_Stanton @Jim_Zablotny @peter , thank you all for your very helpful comments. I agree the bird is a bit soft; I have a custom bird setting on my camera, which includes a much faster shutter speed, but for some reason neglected to use it. Gonna try to fix the holoing too. As far as too much sky, I like to leave “enough” for the bird to fly into, but if that area was reduced by 1/3 would that improve?
Definitely, for me, there is too much sky on the left. I think in terms of visual balance and the negative space here is too much 50-50. The IQ isn’t great. I don’t know the camera or lens, but it looks like the lens is just not that sharp, more than motion blur. Are you shooting in raw? If in JPEG, it could be the in-camera processing challenged with a high contrast subject.
Thanks Diane. Yup, too much sky and the lens does much better over 300mm on a tripod with a faster shutter speed.
