I was standing on my deck yesterday when this Kite landed in a half-dead oak tree. I had to run get the camera.
Any
Is this a composite: No
Canon 60D
Canon 70-300mm IS USM
f/16
1/1000 sec.
ISO 2000
Hand Held
Processed in ACR and PSE 2020 for exposure and cropping. Topaz De-noise applied.
Awesome capture! You even ran! Haha! That’s a beautiful bird!
Thanks, Vanessa. Okay, you caught me. To say I ran might be an overstatement. I “hurried” might be more accurate…Yes, they are striking birds.
Wonderful subject and I love the red eyes and overall pose. Tough subject to catch down low. I usually see them soaring overhead. I’d back off the sharpening to reduce noise on the bird.
Hi, Allen. Yeah, I know he’s a little noisy, but when I back off sharpening, I lose some detail. It was an iffy shot to start with; he was further from me than I would have liked, and it was overcast and a bit hazy. I might try reprocessing it and see if I can come up with a happier combination. As you noted, it isn’t often you catch these guys sitting low like this, so I want to save the shot as best I can. Thanks!
A great catch, Terry. It is pretty noisy and I don’t use Topaz Denoise, so I can’t help yu on settings there, but it looks as if you might be able to get better results. I don’t think you’re going to get a great deal of detail out of it as the original looks a bit soft and sharpening doesn’t really help as much as we’d like to think if the detail isn’t there to start with-it just amplifies the noise.
Thanks, Dennis. I agree there is probably not much I can do with this. Hopefully, he’ll give me another chance and I can work in closer.
Nice species and an interesting pose. Yes, some NR should be possible - but on my screen it’s not a deal breaker to be honest 
. Cheers, Hans
I’m with Hans on this one. I’m not sure how big of an enlargement this is. One needs to really pay attention to topaz De noise as it can introduce some unusual effects. I think the crop in the first image is better from a standpoint of decentering the image.
