The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.
Feedback Focus: Artistic + Technical
About This Image
This is another photo I have captured of the hawks living in my yard. The hawks being so close inspired me to get a “new” lens. An older 70-300mm Canon Zoom with IS. It is really amazing how much closer it can get and really helps with my cropping. The hawk was hanging out in the tree and I tried to get as many shots as possible once it took off. I am really enjoying photographing my hawk buddies!
Feedback Requested
I am wondering about the wing blur, the background bokeh, and the hawks face. In terms of wing blur, I don’t hate it since the face is still (mostly) sharp and it is showing the wing motion. The background blur is a little funky. I wonder if it is from the lens IS. I haven’t used the lens all that much yet and there are too stabilization modes, one specifically for panning, and one for general use. Maybe I chose the wrong setting? For the face, I relied on the camera’s autofocus to grab onto the hawks eyes and I think it did but it still seems not as crisp as it could be. Although, when I print the photo it looks pretty sharp.
Also, does the export look ok? I followed the guide on the site to (hopefully) resize the image correctly haha
Hi Jay, nice opportunity and one you took good advantage of. The wing blur showing motion looks fine to me as does the sharpness of the face. I usually shoot birds in flight faster than 1/1250s (say 1/2000s+) but I think the bird here turned out well. There are bright spots in the background that are a bit distracting. The bird’s face around the beak is a little bright but that is a minor nit. Nice catch - the bird is sharp where it needs to be. Ideally the branches in the background would not be intersecting the bird but the hawk is still prominent enough to hold my attention quite well.
Jay, your export settings look good. The bird’s face looks sharp to me, and that’s a task for any camera when a bird is flying toward you at close range. The wings may have been moving slowly as it looks like he may have been gliding and I suspect some of the blurry look is that they are out of the focal plane. The feet look sharp so I’m guessing the hawk was moving faster than the autofocus, In the Canon family, my R5 wouldn’t have kept up and I suspect it would take the top-end R1 to reliably shoot an incoming bird like this for more than a frame or two.
I don’t see motion blur that would suggest the wrong IS mode. The best clue is to zoom to 100% on the catchlight. And an important consideration is that the steadier the image is on the sensor, the better the AF is.
If you use PS, there are now some pretty amazing tools that might remove the branch that intersects his back-- that is the sort of distraction that many of us will try to eliminate. But overall, a very nice capture!
Hi Allen, Thanks for pointing out the brightness on the leaves and the face. I will see what I can do to minimize some of that I think I may be able to get a little more details from the face feathers. Thanks!
Hi Diane, Thanks for the feedback! You’re right the feet do look sharp, it’s definitely tricky trying to catch them once they take off! The branches are a bummer they definitely make it more busy than I wish it was. Maybe I will try to remove them using PS. Thanks again!
