I managed to capture this fine looking dark phase Red-tail that was lit in the morning’s “golden hour” a couple of days ago. I never tire of shooting Red-tails.
Is the deep shadow lighted enough? How does the hue of blue look? Cropping?
Is this a composite: No
D500, Nikon 200-500 lens, Nikon 1.4 TC, 1/3200th, f 8.0, 480mm, ISO 1400, hand held, cropped to 3963 x 2718, AI Clear
A nice location in the frame and a cool angle, Dave. The hawk looks pretty good, though a touch of curves adjustment or similar on it might bring out the plumage a bit more.
A great capture with wonderful sharp detail! I could go for a slightly looser crop but I do appreciate big in the frame for portraits. For me, there is good shadow detail. Digging out too much can create noise and it can be a challenge to fix the tonal flatness. The sky looks good for hue (which can vary a bit) but is a bit saturated.
There is still noise in the shadows that I think could be improved on. I believe AI Clear is an older algorithm that has been improved upon with Topaz Denoise AI. I would try it, with its sharpening slider pulled down, and then sharpen on a new layer with Topaz Sharpen AI. A careful look at 100% can usually give a good result. Don’t accept the defaults with either without having a close look at tweaks.
There are two noisy areas in the UL that look like squared-off brush strokes. I always denoise first thing into PS, then sharpen, then do any cloning on the cleanest file I can get.
PS – do you have Ferruginous Hawks up there? I saw what looked like a light morph the other day, circling very high with a kettle of maybe 20+ TVs. We should be on the edge of its normal range. I’d never seen one before.
Diane- Yes, we do, in winter only, and I have posted some shots I’ve gotten this season on here. They are my personal favorite hawks. Stunning! Here’s a recent visitor. And thanks for your input on chasing noise, and sharpening. I have Topaz Sharpen AI but I don’t use it much. I’ll have to look at these steps.
