Condors Mating

Image Critiques
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1

Condors mating.jpg
Condors mating.jpg3532×2355 991 KB

Critique Style Requested: Initial Reaction

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What do the tags lead you to think?

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Image Description

Photo was taken in late February when Condors are seeking mates. This was late in the day, about 15 minutes before sunset with the birds being mostly backlit. Location was the Pinnacles National Park in central California. Even though most are now born in the wild, each is tagged with a radio transmitter.

Technical Details

1/2000 sec at f 8, ISO 400, 560 mm

Sony 7M4 100-400mm with 1.4X teleconverter

2

A wonderful moment for species recovery, Kent. There’s a bit of fringing around the birds and the ridge that looks like it might be chromatic aberration. Most RAW processors have something you can turn on to apply lens correction that will take care of that, so you don’t have to mess with it manually. Other than that, there’s a small patch of sky between the heads of the birds that is a different shade of blue from the rest of the sky (and actually one that looks a bit more realistic to me). If you used one of the subject selection tools or the like in your processing, they sometimes pick up an area like that and think it’s part of the subject. Other than those minor nits, I like this.

4

This is kind of a documentary image, Kent, showing aspects of the Condor recovery program-both by humans and the Condors. Really, a nice capture of the pair.