Any pertinent technical details:
D850
500 f/4 AF-S II + 1.4x tc
ISO 1000
1/1600
f/6.3
HH
All feedback welcome and appreciated. I am on the way out the door for work so don’t have time to comment on others’ photographs. But I will later.
Would like to see more detail in the kestrels body. Like the pose and composition.
Very nice catch, Lyle. Welcome to the Avian forum. Detail in both the perch and Kestrel looks good, though given the scale of the Kestrel, I agree with john that you might want to emphasize the plumage detail by increasing micro-contrast or sharpness slightly. I don’t know what software you’re using, but most of them can handle working on the bird alone and leaving the rest of the image alone. I think the whole image could go a bit brighter as well.
This composition works nicely, but if you want to emphasize the bird more, you might try a wide vertical crop. I played with it a bit and it seems to work at about a 6x7 aspect ratio.
This is a really nice image.
I like the composition, light and background very much. I do agree that the bird could use some sharping. Nice image.
A wonderful image in nice light on a great perch. John and the others already brought up the slight softness of the bird, did you crop this much? If not I think I would play around with a slight crop and a vertical aspect. The kestrel seems just a tad small in the frame to my eye. If you move the subject to the left but still keep the sunflower head showing I believe there would still be enough canvas for him to be looking into.
Thank you all for the replies. I did a pretty quick and dirty bird/perch selection and sharpening/NR in PS. I do think the bird could be sharpened a bit more, but in my opinion, the perch is too sharp and contrasty. I think I’ll go back and sharpen the bird and perch separately. Cropping was a bit of a challenge, so I’ll take a look at the suggestions. Again, thank you all for the feedback!