One of the Sharp-shinned Hawks I photographed a few days ago has been returning daily and I happened to catch him(?) in pretty decent evening light two days ago. He doesn’t display any serious worries about my presence, so I was able to follow him as he moved from perch to perch in the back yard. He’s finally learning patience and spent quite a while tucked into the foliage of a dwarf apple tree waiting until the gold finches came back in fair numbers (it didn’t do him any good that time, but it’s a good strategy).
Many of you will recognize this perch as it’s an old fence post that I’ve had behind the backyard pond for years and I’ve photographed a lot of birds on it.
Anything. I touched up some ugly spots on the perch and lower background.
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Anything. This was cropped from a horizontal, so there’s a lot of room for alternative compositions.
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
7DII, Sigma 150-600 C @ 600 mm, hand held, f/8, 1/2000, iso 1600, manual exposure. Processed in LR & PS CC. Cropped from a horizontal original to a 6x7 vertical. Taken at 7:02 pm on August 26th.
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The bird is pretty much textbook perfect, Dennis. The light angle, the head turn, everything is pretty much spot on. I think the composition is also perfect. I am thinking of using luminosity mask to select the darker areas in the BG and lift it a little bit to reduce the contrast. But that’s really a nit. This is pretty much perfect as presented.
Dennis, this is really a great image of this hawk. I believe you may have captured his (?) best side! The lighting and composition are really nice, but I love how his tale is lined with the slope of the fence post. Just a great shot in every way.
Hi Keith. The lower part of the background was painted over with tones borrowed from the rest to eliminate some really ugly out of focus foliage. The upper parts, from about 2/3 of the way up the perch are natural. Most of the background is at least 200 feet away so it’s pretty smooth.
Excellent light, position, and detail. Well composed. I think all those pine Siskins you you had in your yard finally convinced the Sharp shinned Hawk to come in for a closer view
